This is obviously a very simplistic view that follows, But here goes. It all comes down to overfishing, particularly of Jamaica’s most favored delicacy “the parrot fish” an adult parrot fish is responsible for the production of up to 400 pounds of fine grained sand per year. The same fine grained sand that would normally wash up on hellshire’s beaches. It isn’t a job done by any other species of fish and it also is unsurprising that the countries with the most beautiful beaches have/had healthy/abundant parrot fish populations. Without the production of this very fine grain of sand the beaches will cease to be replenished and eventually the erosion will occur at faster and faster rates as the fish population becomes more and more strained.

The fishermen (and the failures of the government to educate them) also don’t or haven’t pieced together the precarious situation they put themselves in.

1. They have to travel further and longer to fish (using more gasolene and spending more money), because the remaining parrot populations move farther and farther from Jamaican shores
2. They complain about the added cost because “di fish nuh plenty like back in di day”.
3. They continue to serve parrot fish like its going out of style. When the marine biologists try to educate them, they simply say “but is mi livelihood, I haffi mek a money”
4. The reality that killing one alpha male parrot fish means severe strain on the entire population around that reef ecosystem, because the females have to wait (up to several months) for one of the females to transform into a male (the fish is hermaphroditic, which as a Jamaican you may sense the irony in the culture here). Which means no reproduction of the species will occur.
5. The ecological pest — Lionfish (which is in my opinion tastier) is now severely pressuring parrot fish populations with no natural defenses to this predator, in fact very few fishes even think about eating this fish. The only defense for the local reef populations is ironically enough fishermen and human habits of consumption, but they are harder/dangerous to catch and slightly more intensive to clean due to the posoined tips of fins. (Not poisonous in any capacity to eat).

And finally you must be wondering can it really be as simple as 1 single fish? Is it? NO. But it is probably the biggest piece of a complex ecological puzzle, that begins and ends with human habits. Breakwaters are a bandaid to cover a heart attack.