There is one certain common talking point among people travelling on the new north-south toll road, and it is the breathtaking view which greets one on the descent into Bog Walk. The sight is of the well-laid-out orange orchards and the extensive cultivation, which remind us of what intensive and structured agricultural production can look like. Not so evident to the casual glance is what can be done when the cultivation of flat land is combined with the use of technology and scientific farming practices.

While agriculture plays a central role in our economy, our country is not a place of unlimited flat, cultivable land. The best of the flat lands have traditionally been used for the cultivation of sugar cane and has remained this way because of its compatibility with the use of farming machinery for the purposes of planting, tending and harvesting of crops. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in the ongoing attempts of recent years to improve the level of productivity while lowering the cost of production of sugar.

At the same time, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that a significant part of agricultural production in this country has come from peasant and small-scale farmers who till the hillside of the central mountain range using the traditional hoe and machete. We are now more aware of the fact that many of these units are no longer viable and sufficiently productive to maintain the life of our small farmers and their families.

With this in mind, it must be a matter of concern that repeated governments have not had a credible and operative plan for the zoning and development of our land in order to ensure that the best of our agricultural lands are not developed at the whims and fancies of citizens, or by those who can exercise influence through their financial or political connections, to convert these lands to residential or commercial use.

Without a deliberate effort to preserve the agricultural potential of our country in this way, we will be looking to the return to the hillsides of Jamaica as the productive base for our agriculture with hoe, machete, and slash-and-burn techniques.

The land of this nation is not just the property of private owners but the patrimony of the entire population, and that must be preserved for the best common good, which has to be guided and protected by effective government policies and laws.

My most recent travel through the vista of the St Catherine plains — Bog Walk in particular — was while on a journey to Montego Bay on the weekend following the days of bloodletting by the criminal elements in St James. I took the opportunity to engage individuals in conversation about some of the developments in the city — the gateway for tourists into Jamaica. I learnt a few things about tourism and crime in their current manifestation.

One thing that was clear is that the perpetuation of the level of violence witnessed in recent time will have a devastating effect on tourism. I would like, however, to take a circuitous route in looking at both issues. I heard several issues of concern to which it appears that our governments in recent decades have been less than forthright.

The first has to do with the increasing alienation of our people from the patrimony of the country in promoting the hospitality industry. No doubt this comment may immediately raise some eyebrows. Our craft vendors have from time to time protested about the way in which they have been marginalised through the spread of all-inclusives and the way in which tours are organised to encompass selected locations and vendors. This certainly does not augur well for cordial relations between the various sectors and citizens who see a thriving trade from which they seem to be excluded in a direct way.

Over a number of years, issues have arisen regarding the lack of access of Jamaicans to the beaches of the communities. Indeed, clergy of the Ocho Rios area had to join a protest regarding the attempts to privatise the only remaining free access to the beach in Ocho Rios last year. Now, Montego Bay residents have witnessed the privatisation of their public beach, Cornwall Beach. The voices of residents of Montego Bay who protested against this course of action were silenced by powerful and vested interests.

As a resident of Montego Bay for a decade, I know that this beach was a rendezvous point for many Montegonians and people from surrounding communities. The lifestyles of our people are changing, and anyone who passes by the few available beaches on a public holiday and during the summer months will see how congested they have become. To confine our people to constantly reducing access to such facilities in our own country, while creating facilities for our visitors, may just be a very short-sighted move by our political leaders begging for some kind of revolt which is not unknown to this country. As is the case in many other tourist destinations across the world, there needs to be facilities which allow interaction between tourists and citizens in a way that fosters mutually enriching experiences.

Additionally, I have been updated on some of the employment practices of some of the newer entries into the hospitality industry which require closer scrutiny and accountability by our Ministry of Labour and other related agencies, including our trade unions. It is not only building codes that are being violated in the sector. The employment practices in terms of the importation of employees into the country to perform jobs for which Jamaicans are qualified, and the culture of the workplace in some of these institutions are raising concerns.

It is not enough to point to the contribution of the hospitality industry to the gross domestic product of the country. Let us not forget that at a time when sugar was a significant contributor to the GDP of Jamaica, sugar workers rose up in protest, and even the means of production fell victim to their anger and frustration.

The current Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett has inherited a situation which he must address with maximum sensitivity if the people of this country, and especially those in areas central to our hospitality industry, are to have a sense of ownership of the industry and not be overcome by feelings of being excluded from what is their patrimony and for which generations have struggled.

My visit to Montego would not be complete without a discussion of the crime situation. As I write, the voices calling for a state of emergency and for the resignation of the Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams are still sounding at loud decibels. But the voices I heard were sharing a different perspective.

So I was hearing stories of young men in various communities, including the most rural as well as urban communities in Western Jamaica, who have several expensive cars, go to excesses of washing their cars with cognac, and who can socialise in lavish fashion in the hot spots of Montego Bay on a weekend, but who do not know with what consonant their name begins, or would even recognise it if they saw it. They are quite visible with their extravagance in their communities. There is clearly also the business and entertainment sectors which are complicit with this criminal element and are thriving on their ill-gotten gains and spoils. They must be brought under the microscope and made accountable for their complicity.

Additionally, I learnt that these people are highly organised and that there are leaders who give instructions to those who would join their cliques, or are on their payroll, which involve rites of initiation that include committing random acts of murder and contract killings. Some of the activities of these leaders — who seem to lack any moral framework — are functioning in ways that border on the occult.

These are the activities of young men who are the products of our educational system, and who have not completed their schooling with any marketable skills and competencies, and have now found their way into the lotto scam. How is it that we have produced such warped minds and failures in our educational system? At the same time we expect the police to solve the problem which has mushroomed before us.

The prospect of incarceration is nothing new, and it did not stop the birth of these criminals. Increased strategies of incarceration will only be stopgap measures. As the cry goes out for more drastic police and State responses, let us not forget the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s. The philosophy of “fighting fire with fire” did not bring the desired results, neither did the creation of “Red Fence” on South Camp Road drive any fear into the perpetrators of gun crimes.

The notion of a patrimony worth preserving means nothing to these criminal minds. So, while they have brought disgrace to the image of Jamaica and a spiralling murder rate, it matters little to them. We are not strangers to the notion of our young men and our police having a less than amicable relationship. I fear that the notion of policing as the primary solution to the crime problem in western Jamaica may sow the seeds for a whirlwind we have not contemplated.

We must address the underlying social realities which create such antisocial minds and behaviours. We must also assume a collective responsibility for addressing this serious social problem so that people in communities who know exactly the wrongs that are taking place will be prepared to step forward and end their silence. We must explore ways of creating employment for the emerging cohort of young men so that they do not follow the path of those already committed to a criminal lifestyle.

In offering our solutions, we must also lay aside some of our naivety, and acknowledge that those young men who have known the wealth of scamming and the power of the gun will not settle for minimum-wage incomes and easily adapt to the discipline of the workplace.

But, beyond the immediate tragic loss of lives which we are witnessing, we can be sure that, if we do not confront the problem collectively and realistically, we will see the achievements which we have made as a nation — not the least being the building of a hospitality industry — demolished before our eyes. In that way we would not only have betrayed the patrimony that has been bequeathed to us by Sam Sharpe and those who laboured to build this nation and this industry, but we shall have little of value to pass on to our descendants as a credible and valuable patrimony.

Right Reverend Howard Gregory is the Anglican Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.