For the past 50 years, the summit of Maunakea on the island of Hawai’i has been commandeered by telescopes, observatories, and astronomical research. From base to peak, it measures at 33,500 feet, making it the tallest mountain in the world. The stable and dry atmosphere at the peak makes it a prime location for telescope observation, as the conditions minimize atmospheric distortion.
Though for Kanaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawai’i, it is more than a site for scientific development.
“Maunakea is a mountain that is sacred to many of our ancestral deities,” says Laulani Teale, Hawaiian organizer and cultural practitioner. “It’s in our genealogy as Hawaiians. It’s sacred to Wākea, the Sky father, as a point at which he meets with Papahānaumoku, the Earth mother.”
Wākea, the Sky father, and Papahānaumoku, the Earth mother blocked from meeting by the observatory atop Maunakea.
13 observatories currently sit on top of Maunakea, with construction for the first telescope beginning in 1967. In their July meeting, the UC Regents approved an additional $10 million to fund the construction of what would be the 14th telescope on the volcano, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Despite being in the works for the past 15 years, there is no ongoing construction of the TMT, and plans to advance the project are locked in a standstill.
Since proponents of the TMT announced Maunakea as its first-choice location in 2009, plans for construction have been stewed in controversy, facing resistance from Indigenous Hawaiian groups, environmental activists, and student protestors alike.
Protests on Hawaiian soil against the TMT began in October 2014. In 2019, 33 kūpuna, or Hawaiian elders, were arrested while peacefully blocking a road to the summit of Maunakea.
“It is about Hawaiian sovereignty,” said Malia Peris, a UC Santa Cruz student and member of UCSC Mauna Kea Protectors. “The UC has put so much money into this. They don’t want to listen to students anymore even though there’s opposition from us and opposition from communities in Hawai’i.”
Alongside the cultural significance of the mountain, many at UCSC and in Hawai’i have major concerns about the project’s environmental impact. Construction on Maunakea would require a complex undertaking involving mass transport of materials to the summit. Some protestors and environmental scientists worry about the ability of construction management to appropriately mitigate any ecological impacts.
“The biggest issue from an ecological and environmental side in Hawai’i and at the summit is introduced species,” says Jesse Eiben, an adjunct professor at Westmoreland College who did applied conservation research at Maunakea. “If there are new plants or animals that arrive with any construction activities, because it’s going too fast or not being monitored, all of those problems come with ecological effects.”
The environmental impact of the TMT is impossible to fully understand prior to its construction, but advocates for the telescope are optimistic about the project’s sustainability.
In 2010, the University of Hawai’i Center from Maunakea Stewardship released an environmental impact statement for the TMT that proposed the project would have a limited effect on the environmental health of the land. However, activists remain concerned.
“The environment and the Native Hawaiian culture are very closely aligned. Whether it’s geologically, or whether it’s in terms of the living beings that are on top of Maunakea — the plants and animals that are native or endangered or endemic,” says Deb Ward, former chair for the Sierra Club of Hawai’i. “The historical trauma that’s been imposed by telescopes has been more than just construction. It has also been arrogance, disrespect, name-calling, exclusion, extreme discrimination.”
UCSC Maunakea Protectors argue that the construction of the telescope and the UC’s role in funding the project is a continuation of a settler colonialist ideology on the island of Hawai’i. In response to continued university funding, many have called for the university to divest from the TMT and denounce the project entirely. Despite these efforts, proponents for the TMT remain steadfast in their support and belief that the TMT will do more good than harm.
According to its website, the TMT will feature unique capabilities for the exploration of black holes, dark matter, and the possibility of life outside the solar system. Maunakea was selected as the primary option for the TMT, edging out Cerro Armazones, Chile, due to its location in the northern hemisphere.
“There’s a very broad range of scientific questions that extremely large telescopes like TMT are intended to assess,” explained Bruce Macintosh, Director of UC Observatories, in an interview with City on a Hill Press. “What we’re trying to address is the broad question of how we go from a universe nanoseconds after the Big Bang consisting of just fundamental particles … to the universe we live in now.”
The astronomy community has had a contentious relationship with student, environmental, and Indigenous organizers. In the past few years, publicity efforts have been made to address concerns over the telescope and mend a history between astronomy and native sovereignty that has long dismissed and disregarded domestic land rights.
“I believe extremely strongly that astronomy has made a lot of mistakes over the 50 or more years of telescopes and that we have a lot to apologize for,” Macintosh said. “When the first telescopes were put up there, through to the most recent ones, there was really no meaningful role for the people of Hawaii.”
But for those who seek to prevent construction and preserve the Maunakea summit, these concessions of apologies and acknowledgments are not nearly enough.
“They understand that what they’re doing is wrong, they just don’t want to back out anymore because of how much money they put into it,” member of UCSC Mauna Kea Protectors Malia Peris said. “I would just like the UC admin to finally realize that they messed up and that they should listen to students. They should listen to the communities that involve this project and take accountability for their actions.”
