Kerensia Morrison Gives Good Advice About Growing The Population

Minister Kerensia Morrison

The news is that Jamaica's birth rate is falling. Bark Di Trute writer Michael Spence had discussed the matter some time ago in one of his articles. We have to be careful how we sell the message to the people because it can be misinterpreted. Tonight on TVJ News, I heard Minister Kerensia Morrison speaking at a function and giving her views about the need to have more children. I love her holistic approach. Minister Mayne spoke at the same function.

Minister Morrison made it clear that it was not about having children for any man. She exhorted the women to further their education and to get a skill. I thought that her presentation was brilliant. Women are not breeding machines, and having more children has to be a decision that the women and the men have to make.

Minister Morrison said in another forum that we may be promoting a neo-plantation where we need more workers to plough the field with little care for the holistic development of human capacity. She obviously doesn't want us to follow in the footsteps of our colonial masters, who just wanted the women to produce more children to provide more slave labour.

The minister knows that some will find negative things to say about the government's plans to increase the population. She says an opposing argument could be "The government is more concerned about cramming numbers to fill up schools but has little care for enough social workers, proper technology, affordable books, good nutrition, and access to healthcare."

She also said in another forum that while we want to see the population grow, this encouragement must be balanced with clear pathways to support the family as a unit and to encourage responsible decision-making. Not a supply chain. We do not want to see more irresponsible fathers, fathers being dragged to family court, or mothers who are unprepared for the serious responsibility of raising a child. We are duty-bound to consider the cost of prenatal care, affording to raise a child with full access to learning and other developmental needs and the mental/emotional security of a stable home.

It seems to me that Minister Kerensia Morrison is on to something. We must heed her words or else we could end up creating greater problems than the one we are trying to solve.

I must add that having more children should not mean having more children to increase the number of people living below the poverty line. We should increase productivity and production to support the increase in the population.

TVJ Video

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George Soutar Has Died

 

The following is an audio statement on Mr Souar's passing from the President of the Senate, the Honourable Tom Tavares Finson:

Audio

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Keep abreast of the news and information in the world. Bark Di Trute, a Jamaican blog, is packed with accurate information. Click the following link and get information at your fingertips. WhatsApp link is: https://chat.whatsapp.com/C9bkP96JIN2JgHiuktY3Jj 

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You can view the blog with your computer at https://vderby.blogspot.com, and you will be able to see the various links. For example, there is a link that takes you to the calendar to see what is happening on the weekend. You can even search the site for articles. There is also a weather link, which you can use to track hurricanes.

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Earthquake Preparedness

Contributed

Michael Spence 

The Earthquake Unit at UWI, Mona, in Jamaica logs 45 to 50 events monthly. They recorded 549 in 2025, relative to 633 in 2024.

Out of hundreds recorded yearly, only a tiny number are felt, usually around 6 to 10 events for the entire year strong enough for people to actually feel.

Active Seismic Zones: Certain parts of and areas around the island experience higher concentrations of shifting tectonic plates than others, such as the Blue Mountain Block. Eastern Jamaica registers the highest concentration of local seismic activities.

Note well, Bark di Trute, that Montpelier-Newmarket- Bethel Town Belt is a notable zone of activity located in western Jamaica. Residents should be made aware.

That belt is therefore from Montpelier in St. James via Hanover, Westmoreland, to Newmarket in St. Elizabeth. I wonder how many people are aware of this? Earthquake response drills should become a feature in our schools and communities.

The Earthquake Unit at the University of the West Indies can be contacted if guidelines are needed on earthquake safety preparation for the community, school, home, or office.

All institutions along the most active seismic belts should be prepared to respond appropriately.

The police, teachers, and all medical personnel should be prepared.

Over 5-600 tremors per year are no fun and games.

Michael Spence

Michael Spence is a graduate of Cornwall College and the University of the West Indies. He is a trained teacher, a sociologist, and a writer for Bark Di Trute.

Micspen2@hotmail.com 

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Keep abreast of the news and information in the world. Bark Di Trute, a Jamaican blog, is packed with accurate information. Click the following link and get information at your fingertips. WhatsApp link is: https://chat.whatsapp.com/C9bkP96JIN2JgHiuktY3Jj 

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More On Emancipation and Independence

Contributed

Michael Spence 

Jamaica holds a singular and contested place in the Caribbean. Unlike Barbados, St. Kitts-Nevis, Trinidad, Cuba, and most other islands, where the public has established rights of access and use of beaches.

Jamaica is the only country in the region where citizens still do not have a clear, guaranteed right to freely access the coastline. 

What should be a public common good has instead been enclosed by hotels, villas, and gated developments. This is not simply tourism policy. It is a continuation of dispossession.

Under Jamaican law, the foreshore, that is the strip between the high and low water marks, is Crown land legally and belongs to the public. 

The Beach Control Act of 1956 gave government control over the foreshore and seabed, but access has depended on licenses and permissions, not on an inherent right. The Act “does not give Jamaicans any inherent right to beach access. This is “the product of a colonial mindset”. It is scamming.

In March 2026, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness tabled the final Beach Access and Management Policy, the first attempt in decades to address the issue. 

The policy “still stops short of clearly guaranteeing Jamaicans the right to freely access the country’s coastline." Some academics, lobby groups and enlightened MPs argue that it treats access as “managed permission rather than a fundamental public right." 

The government’s stated goal/compromise is at least one public recreational beach per parish, but the rights of existing titleholders and license holders will be expressly protected. 

The beach question cannot be separated from the land question. 

At Emancipation  1834-1838 311,000-450,000 enslaved Jamaicans were "freed", but received no land or compensation. The land “remained, in every legal and practical sense, someone else’s”. 

Colonial policy deliberately kept Crown land priced out of reach at £1 per acre, roughly two weeks’ wages, to prevent labourers from buying it. That pattern persists. 

The state remains the largest holder of land. “A colonial vestige/relic that denies citizens equity." 

Today, Jamaica has approximately 800 informal settlements housing over 850,000 people, equivalent to about 30% of the country’s population. 

Earlier estimates placed squatters at 500,000 in 2008, and a 2018 report noted that represented “between fifteen and thirty-five percent of the national population”. 80% of these settlements are on government-owned lands. 

Without title, residents “cannot use land as collateral for loans, stifling entrepreneurship and wealth creation." 

Prime Minister Holness himself has recently described expanding land ownership and titling for informal settlements as critical to breaking intergenerational poverty. 

Historians link this directly to the plantation past: “The uneven distribution has been maintained post-Emancipation, with plantations limiting peasant access to arable lands”. 

By 1970, “71% of the farming population controls a mere 12% of the land” while “52% of the prime lands were owned by 0.7% of the population”.

The question Michael Manley posed in the 70s, “how to connect the descendants of enslaved people to the soil of the island," has not been answered to this day. 

Roughly 30% of private land in Jamaica is still held as “family land,” passed down informally without wills, creating legal complications. 

The government is now attempting to pursue systemic registration and bills to address “insecurity of tenure arising from a large number of persons occupying lands whose names are not on the titles." 

Beach access is the most visible symbol of a deep problem. Jamaicans continue to complain about “the payment of fees for access to the foreshore” and “the loss of physical and visual access to the sea”.

Let us call it “the continued displacement and dispossession of the Jamaican people from the coastline." 

A nation cannot be free if its people are locked out of its land and its sea. Until legislation establishes an irrevocable public right to beach access, and until land reform converts occupancy into title for the estimated 800,000+ Jamaicans living in informal settlements, Emancipation and Independence will remain dates on a calendar rather than lived realities. 

The shoreline should not be a reminder of bondage. It should be proof that freedom finally includes the ground beneath our feet.

Michael Spence

Michael Spence is a graduate of Cornwall College and the University of the West Indies. He is a trained teacher, a sociologist, and a writer for Bark Di Trute.

Micspen2@hotmail.com 

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Keep abreast of the news and information in the world. Bark Di Trute, a Jamaican blog, is packed with accurate information. Click the following link and get information at your fingertips. WhatsApp link is: https://chat.whatsapp.com/C9bkP96JIN2JgHiuktY3Jj 

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You can view the blog with your computer at https://vderby.blogspot.com, and you will be able to see the various links. For example, there is a link that takes you to the calendar to see what is happening on the weekend. You can even search the site for articles. There is also a weather link, which you can use to track hurricanes.

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7.4 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Columbia!

 

There was another earthquake in South America, in Colombia. We can expect the death toll to rise. The last report was that 20 people had died. The following is a report from CBS:

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Prostate Cancer

Remember to have your prostate checked out by the doctor, or you might see your maker earlier than he had planned.

Please add your comments at the bottom of the blog.

______________________

Click Here.

______________________

Keep abreast of the news and information in the world. Bark Di Trute, a Jamaican blog, is packed with accurate information. Click the following link and get information at your fingertips. WhatsApp link is: https://chat.whatsapp.com/C9bkP96JIN2JgHiuktY3Jj 

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It's best to view this blog on your computer at https://vderby.blogspot.com.

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Subscribe Now!

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Without your support, Bark Di Trute could fail to bark one day. Send your ideas, stories, and news by WhatsApp at (876) 816-5261.

You can view the blog with your computer at https://vderby.blogspot.com, and you will be able to see the various links. For example, there is a link that takes you to the calendar to see what is happening on the weekend. You can even search the site for articles. There is also a weather link, which you can use to track hurricanes.

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