The Mauna Kea Protectors (MKP) was originally a global movement with branches spread across the University of California system. Now, one of the only active student-based MKP branches in the UC system is rooted at UC Santa Cruz’s campus.
Founded in 2019, UCSC MKP is a relatively new organization. Though the number of members currently in the organization is modest, their activism and sense of purpose is abundant.
“We’re a solidarity org,” said Ananya Jandhyala, a third-year environmental studies major and member of UCSC MKP. “Our goal is to move in solidarity with all Indigenous movements to protect land, protect water, to protect the sacred — but we’re specifically formed in solidarity with the fight to protect the Mauna.”
The “Mauna” refers to Mauna a Wākea, a sacred native land in Hawai’i and one of the last remaining bastions of indigenous culture, tradition and religions. The kia’i have fought to preserve Mauna a Wākea against encroaching research institutions since the inception of the University of Hawai’i’s creation of the first telescope in 1968. Over the course of the past 58 years, the Mauna has been subjected to the construction of 13 large-scale and high-budget telescopes by various institutions, including the University of Hawai’i, Caltech and the Lockheed Martin Corporation. According to the University of Hawai’i, the first telescope was meant to advance scientific discoveries in astronomy.
According to Jandhyala, UCSC MKP currently has about ten active members and primarily focuses on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project, the largest telescope projected to be built on Mauna Kea. The UC is a primary investor in this project and, in spite of the current halt in planning due to a lack of federal funding, continues to be an adversarial entity in the kia’i’s, ‘the protectors’, fight to maintain autonomy over native lands.
“It is hard at times getting people to see the connection of ‘there’ to ‘here,’” said undergraduate member of UCSC MKP Ennis Opstad. “But in truth, UCSC is deeply tied to this furthering of displacement of Native Hawaiians in Hawai’i, and furthering of settler colonialism on illegally annexed land.”
Despite being unable to physically support decolonial efforts on location at Mauna a Wākea, UCSC MKP aims to support the kia’i’s efforts by way of education. They also organize through fundraisers and community-based events, like their most recent screening of the documentary “Standing Above the Clouds.”
The screening served as an opportunity for the UCSC community to come together and learn about the continuing fight of native Hawaiians’ sovereignty over indigenous lands. The documentary follows the lives of native Hawaiian mothers and daughters in their journey to conserve cultural traditions and identity in the face of the construction of an industrial telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea. Many students and faculty members, including professors and staff from the humanities and social sciences departments attended the event.
Like many other student-run organizations on campus, UCSC MKP members are simultaneously advocates and students. With finals on the horizon, their organization may be experiencing a lull in event organizing but their mission still holds true.
