Spécialité LLCER AMC (Centres Etrangers Afrique) - Bac 2026

With more than 16,000 homes and buildings destroyed in the January 2025 wildfires, the LA neighbourhoods and nearby communities affected have been left contemplating how best to balance the need to get their homes back as soon as possible with future resilience to wildfire. […]

5Faced with a daunting rebuild, many contractors¹ and homeowners want to build quickly, with some working to loosen environmental protection code and permit requirements. Meanwhile, wildfire experts tell the BBC they want to ensure new construction is compliant with fire and energy codes, while sustainability advocates say they hope greener methods and materials will enter the market. […]

10Some of the proposed methods are already being used in the wider US. In Colorado, for example, where a 2021 wildfire destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in the Denver suburb of Superior, some homeowners have opted to rebuild using compressed earth blocks that have a high resilience to fire.

And CalEarth, a California-based nonprofit that pioneered a type of earthbag 15construction called super adobe, has drawn renewed attention from residents, says Khalili, president of CalEarth, and is urging state and local officials to work with them on making their designs code-compliant.²

“Let’s do the full tests… and build back prepared for these climate events,” Dastan Khalili tells the BBC. “It’s insane to build the same thing and expect different results.”

20But bringing alternative building methods to market is costly, especially in California, where materials must prove to be fire-resistant while also passing stringent³ seismic testing.

For seven years, the promise of the 2028 Summer Olympics has shimmered on the horizon as a source of pride and celebration for Los Angeles. There were concerns: the homelessness crisis, cost overruns,¹ comparisons with the successful Games last year in Paris. But for the most part, 2028 held out the hope of delivering as much of a 5boost for the region’s economy and international image as the Olympics of 1984.

That has all been called into question in the space of a week.

The fires that have ripped across the region have presented Los Angeles with a challenge that would test the bandwidth and resources of any city: how to host a 17-day, $7 billion spectacle expected to draw as many as 15 million visitors to a region of 1018 million people, all while rebuilding entire neighborhoods erased by fire.

No one is suggesting that the Games be postponed or canceled in response to the fires. But there is rising concern that an already difficult endeavor for both Los Angeles, the main host city, and LA2028, the private committee in charge of raising most of the money and running the Games, has become staggeringly complicated. […]

15The Games are to take place at nearly 50 venues spread out across a vast territory, from Temecula to the San Fernando Valley. Even before the prospect of enormous reconstruction projects, there were concerns about the logistics of moving huge crowds across a region overrun by traffic and with a transit system that remains, to a significant extent, a work in progress.

20Now, Los Angeles confronts the unexpected expenses of millions of dollars in overtime payments to firefighters and police officers, on top of the costs of repairing or rebuilding city-owned structures. […]

Jadrian Wooten, a professor at Virginia Tech who has studied the economics of sports, said the central question in the months and years ahead would be “how much of the 25city’s resources will be devoted to revitalizing areas for the Olympics versus responding to destruction from future wildfires.”

“Balancing those two priorities will be critical in determining whether L.A. has both the money and the capacity to handle an event of this scale alongside wildfire response,” he said.

After the fires were out, Angelenos,¹ with resilience and resolve, asked “how can we rebuild our homes? And when can we go home?” Home is at the heart of healing, and that has been the North Star of our recovery efforts to get people home. [...]

We still have a long way to go, and for those who have lost a home, each and every 5day is a day too long. We want to be fast, we want to be safe and we want to be resilient. […]

Now 2028 is right around the corner. […]

We want people not just to see our stadiums. We want them to see the real L.A. […] And we want our city to be at its best.

10So this is why I am calling on all Angelenos to come together to prepare our city to welcome the world.

The waters of the Blue Lagoon change colour throughout the day, from glistening turquoise to deep royal blue, depending on the height of the sun. Fed by a freshwater mineral spring that meets sandy beaches as it opens out to the sea, the luminous pool has become popular with holidaymakers and honeymooners.

5At one time, it was also an idyllic spot where locals in this pocket of northern Jamaica could learn to swim. Local man Wilbourn Carr has fond memories of the place, which he used to access via paths through the rainforest. […]

But access to the lagoon and beach has become increasingly restricted. Over the last few decades, the 238 acres of land surrounding the pool and beach have been sold to 10private owners. […]

The dwindling¹ beach access experienced by Carr and his community is a common story across the island.

It’s what prompted Dr Devon Taylor to found the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) — an organisation campaigning for the 15recognition and protection of beach access rights for all Jamaicans. […]

Jamaica has around 795km of shoreline, of which around 30 per cent is sandy beaches. But the Jamaican public can access less than 1 per cent of them, JaBBEM says. […]

Marcus Goffe, a human rights lawyer representing JaBBEM and community members 20in several beach access cases, said that at the heart of the issue is a colonial-era law that prioritises private landowners and foreign investors over ordinary Jamaicans.

Under the Beach Control Act of 1956, the Jamaican public have no inherent rights to bathe, walk or fish at the island’s beaches. The owner of a beachfront property maintains all rights for the access and use of the beach. […]

25Jamaica gained its independence from Britain in 1962, but like Australia, retains the British monarch as its head of state. Many colonial-era laws remain intact to this day.

Each new hotel they built was larger than the last, until the resorts resembled our still-standing colonial houses and plantations, many of which served as attractions and wedding destinations for tourists. […] This was paradise – where neither our history 5nor our land belonged to us. Every year Black Jamaicans owned less and less of the coast that bejewelled our island to the outside world, all our beauty bought up by rich hoteliers, or sold off to foreigners by the descendants of white enslavers who earned their fortunes on our backs, and who still own enough of Jamaica today to continue to turn a profit.

10But my great-grandfather would not sell our little beachside. He held on to his home, even as the hotels grew grander on both sides of the village, even as we lived deeper and deeper in their shadow, until eventually the coral reefs¹ he fished in blanched and disappeared, his livelihood² gone. Now most of Montego Bay's coastline is owned by Spanish and British hoteliers – our new colonization – and most Jamaicans must pay 15an entrance fee to enter and enjoy a beach. Not us. Today, no stretch of beach in Montego Bay belongs to its Black citizens except for White House. […] This little hidden village by the sea, this beachside, was still ours, only.

After years of public frustration over limited access to some of the island’s most scenic beaches, the Jamaica government says it is taking concrete steps to ensure that citizens can enjoy more of the nation’s coastline — even as hotel development continues to expand.

5Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Matthew Samuda, announced on Tuesday that newly approved hotel projects are now required to include pathways to public beaches traditionally used by locals. […]

While some Caribbean nations like the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Antigua and Barbuda guarantee free and unrestricted access to all beaches, Jamaica 10has struggled with the privatization of many of its most popular shores. Though there are public beaches across the island, locals have long argued that the best and most scenic spots are often controlled by private interests or come with hefty entrance fees.

A petition launched on the Office of the Prime Minister’s website called for a revision of the Beach Control Act Law to allow citizens of Jamaica access to every beach.

15That longstanding demand is now being addressed.