Rastafarian Village Is Under Pressure to Keep Its Oasis Alive

For 17 years, a group of Rastafari teachers, artisans, and community organizers have created an oasis for themselves in the hills outside of Montego Bay, Jamaica. In a 30-acre village tucked away among the trees near the banks of the Montego River, they honor the Afro-Indigenous ways of their ancestors by eating locally-sourced foods, making homemade soaps and drums, and living in close connection with nature. The village generates revenue by hosting tour groups and wellness retreats, and visitors are welcomed to partake in the sacramental use of ganja and join in sacred ceremonies featuring psilocybin, ayahuasca, and other plant medicines. 

In a country where tourism is dominated by corporate resorts and moneyed Western interests, this unique settlement — known as the Rastafari Indigenous Village — stands as a rare institution for Indigenous Jamaican culture. But keeping the village afloat has not always been easy, and in recent months, Babylonian forces of development have encroached on the territory. A state-backed road construction project has upended the village’s economic stability and wreaked havoc on the surrounding environment. The situation has been traumatic for the village’s residents, ramping up uncertainty about the future of their settlement while raising deeper concerns about the future of Jamaica’s natural environment in the face of economic development. 

“All the trees that we would normally use and the forest that we would normally walk in to find things for craft are gone,” Firstman, a co-founder and longtime resident of the Rastafari Indigenous Village, tells DoubleBlind. “It’s going to take at least ten years for those things to even start to come back.” 

The $274 million government project in question was launched in partnership with China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd. (CHEC), a state-owned Chinese construction company, and consists of two new bypass roads, including a four-lane, 9.3-mile toll road. As Jamaica’s second-largest city, Montego Bay is the island’s most popular destination for international tourists, and the public entity that manages the project — the National Road Operating and Constructing Company Limited (NROCC) — boasts that the new roads will reduce traffic congestion and “spur economic benefit” in the area. (Stephen Edwards, the managing director of NROCC, did not respond to multiple text messages and WhatsApp calls from DoubleBlind seeking comment.) 

Before the project broke ground, Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency requested and published an environmental impact assessment as part of the permitting process to allow construction to move forward. NROCC also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2021 with the national Forestry Department to replant trees in areas affected by the road construction. 

According to Jerome Smith, Principal Director of Forest Operations for the Forestry Department, the path of the new roads cuts into two of Jamaica’s protected forest reserves, which are normally designated for conservation and research purposes. Nearly half of the island is covered in forest, and Smith says more than 7,000 trees have been replanted as part of the MOU in alignment with the government’s “no net loss” forest policy. But the Forestry Department hasn’t yet replanted trees in areas affected by the Montego Bay bypass — a second MOU is expected to be signed by the end of October — and Smith acknowledges that some environmental impact is inevitable. 

“People want access to roads, people want access to infrastructure, and all of that unfortunately will have to come at the expense of some of the environmental ecosystem,” he says in an interview with DoubleBlind. “But where we can, we try to ensure as much as possible that these activities are done sustainably or with minimal impact.” 

Firstman, who co-founded the Rastafari Indigenous Village in 2003, before it relocated to the Montego Bay location in 2008, has cast a wary eye at this state-backed undertaking, worried about how construction has gradually encroached on the village’s territory and skeptical of government efforts to mitigate the environmental impacts. His concern grew into alarm this spring — around the time that DoubleBlind first reported on the village — when a contingent of hard-hatted construction workers and Hitachi excavators arrived in the area directly outside the village.

In recent months, workers have torn down hundreds of trees (if not more) in a nearly two-mile radius around the village. The river — a core feature of the area, offering a constant reminder of the villagers’ kinship with nature while providing a water source and a space for meditation and recreational activities — has become polluted with thick layers of silt from the construction site nearby, turning the water a filthy green color. Firstman says trucks have plowed directly into the water to collect it for construction use, contaminating the currents with engine oil and other toxins. 

Felled trees and other debris have effectively cut off the village from easy public access, while the incessant noise of construction has tormented the villagers still living on the property. Seven months have passed since they last hosted a psychedelic ceremony: A group of women hoping to overcome trauma had an evening of transcendent tripping, only to be startled awake the next morning by a clamor of banging and digging. 

According to residents, half a dozen of their neighbors have taken buyouts to flee the area. But the Rastafari Indigenous Village remains. Although Firstman has contacted government agencies, including NROCC, about the construction issues, he says the village never received an offer to relocate. The situation has left them with limited options. Their tourism license recently expired, and they’ve struggled to come up with the funds to renew it. Taking the government to court over the construction would also be too costly. 

“A large chunk of our earnings has been taken away,” says Queen Izeteh Berhan, aka Queen I, a teacher and artisan who has lived at the village for 11 years. She makes a living by creating and selling handmade soaps and hosting Reiki ceremonies. For three months this summer, she was forced to relocate to London for work. She has grown increasingly concerned about the mental health of her 15-year-old son, who has been experiencing panic episodes because of the noise and the deteriorating condition of the river. 

“During one of his panics, he was wondering if they were going to come and mow down the village,” Queen I says. 

Natural living is a major part of Rastafari culture. As part of their “livity,” Rastas embrace organic foods, naturally grown products, and wild herbs with healing properties as a way to ensure physical and mental longevity. The scholar Ennis B. Edmonds writes in his 2012 book Rastafari: A Very Short Introduction that these practices are core to Rastalogy’s broader anti-colonial framework — part of a “commitment to reconstitute an African self” in the face of Western oppression and marginalization. And while psychedelics other than cannabis (which, technically, isn’t a psychedelic, although in high doses it can feel like one) aren’t commonly consumed in other Rasta communities, plant medicines like ayahuasca and mushrooms help the members of the Rastafari Indigenous Village form a deeper connection to the earth and their ancestors. 

“A lot of people come here to immerse themselves in simplicity and nature. This is all we are about,” Queen I says, as the sound of frogs and crickets ring out over her WhatsApp call on a recent evening. “People really do benefit from this space in terms of healing at all levels — emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Even personally, when I went to London, I was so fortunate to be near a park. I like waking up in the mornings and searching under the fruit trees to see what’s there for me. It’s my blessing for the day.” 

The radical changes to their surroundings are especially difficult to deal with, considering that the community already went through turmoil following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Tour visits ground to a halt, and half of the village’s residents moved away. The village wasn’t able to fully recover until 2023 — when an investment from Steve DeAngelo, a prominent American cannabis activist, helped them launch their wellness retreats with newly-built guest accommodations. DeAngelo now wonders who the new bypass roads will ultimately benefit, considering that coastal resorts and cruise companies regularly bring foreigners to Montego Bay. 

“This is a tragedy, not just for the village and the villagers. It’s a tragedy for Jamaica, and it’s a tragedy for the world,” DeAngelo says. “There are so few places you can go where you see authentic culture that’s grown up around the understanding of plants as sacraments and as helpers.” 

The loss of trees and damage to the Montego River, of course, leads to long-term effects, which experts say could reverberate for decades. While an impressive 47% of Jamaica’s land is covered with forest, Smith (from the Forestry Department) notes that the once-dominant presence of sugar cane plantations means that only about 7% of the island consists of untouched broadleaf woodland. These “primary forests” have never been subject to development or deforestation. In contrast, the island’s much larger “secondary forests” consist of fewer species of younger trees, and replanting brings less ecological diversity and value. “Not all forests are created equal,” Smith says.  

To keep spirits high during what they call their “Time of Trial,” the residents of the Rastafari Indigenous Village are welcoming members of Indigenous groups from South America and Africa to come to the site and pray for them and for humanity. They’re hosting a Forest Restoration Ceremony with the Huni Kuin of the Amazon on October 30, and another ceremony with the Dogons on December 3. Firstman and DeAngelo are also partnering with the Wonderland Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit, to raise awareness and collect donations. Rather than picking up stakes and moving on to a new location, Firstman believes the village has a role to play in restoring the natural habitat in their corner of Montego Bay. 

“We have to look to see, who is this important to? Who would have the concern to see that something like this needs to be preserved in a world that is just into development, or destruction disguised as development? Who is spending the time to make sure that trees are here, and if you move them, you have to then replant and reforest the space?” Firstman says. “These are the types of spaces that the world is going to need to balance this ozone layer and climate change madness. It’s not frivolous, the work that is being done here.”

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