The Cost of Paradise: Dahvia Hylton on Climate Injustice & Colonial Greed in Jamaica

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Season 1 | Episode 10

Jamaica is more than sun-soaked beaches and reggae rhythms—it’s a frontline battleground where capitalism, colonialism, and climate injustice collide. Educator and climate justice activist Dahvia Hylton unpacks the hard truths about how tourism, bauxite mining, and corporate greed are gutting the island’s environmental and infrastructural integrity. From locals being locked out of their own beaches to the relentless grip of American socio-political influence, Dahvia breaks down the manufactured systems keeping Jamaicans in survival mode—an all-too-familiar reality for Black communities worldwide.

With deep ancestral wisdom of land stewardship, Jamaica should be a climate-resilient haven, yet the odds are stacked. Dahvia speaks candidly on the uphill battle of sustainability, the hypocrisy of environmental policies, and the necessity of radical community-driven solutions. This is a raw and urgent reckoning with the forces threatening Jamaica’s future—and a powerful reminder that the fight for climate justice is a fight for liberation.

MORE ABOUT DAHVIA

Dahvia Hylton is an educator and an activist, currently serving as the President of the Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council and the co-coordinator of the Stronger Together Caribbean Network. She has been an advocate for environmental protection and the rights of women and girls for over 7 years, beginning with her work with the I’m Glad I’m a Girl Foundation. Her most recent publication with a team of fellow climate advocates of the JCCYC focuses on Climate Smart Development for Internal Migration and Urbanization in Jamaica.

“The most recent one being deep sea mining, because it’s a decision that affects the entire world, but it’s being made here in Jamaica … So now they want to go deep into the deep sea and make things worse for the rest of the planet. Because our ocean is our strongest ally against climate change, something that a lot of people don’t discuss or know about, that it’s 50 % of the oxygen that we breathe. So it’s every other breath and that it sequesters so much carbon that the effects of climate change you’re feeling now is not nearly as bad as it would have been without our ocean’s intervention. It takes in so much of the carbon that we’ve produced. to its own detriment. That’s why it’s dying. That’s why it’s on a verge of collapse. That’s why lot of ecosystems are collapsing.”

— Dahlia