Every once in awhile, we check in on the Hawaiian telescope project in which UC is involved that stalled amidst demonstrations several years ago. Possibly, something may happen beginning in July.
Path forward for Thirty Meter Telescope and Mauna Kea begins to emerge
A new oversight board with a state mandate to manage the sacred mountaintop includes representatives from astronomical observatories and Native Hawaiian communities.
By Mark Zastrow | March 29, 2023 | Astronomy
After years of protests that halted the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea and divided communities in Hawaii, a major change in the management of the summit is underway. Since the beginning of this year, a new state-appointed oversight board has been preparing to assume management of Mauna Kea. Under a law signed in June 2022 by then-Hawaii Governor David Ige, a five-year transition period formally begins in July of this year. Then, in 2028, the Maunakea Stewardship Oversight Authority (MKSOA) will take over stewardship of the mountaintop from the University of Hawaii (UH), which has managed the site since 1968.
Crucially, the MKSOA includes representatives from both astronomical observatories and Native Hawaiian communities. Its members say it marks a new approach, one that for the first time gives Native Hawaiians a voting role in overseeing the mountaintop. And although board members don’t want to get ahead of the process, an emerging compromise could see the embattled TMT built atop the peak in exchange for the decommissioning of several telescopes. The broad outlines of such a deal would be similar to terms previously agreed on by the University of Hawaii with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) as conditions for obtaining the building permit for TMT’s construction, which never commenced in the face of protests. What may be different this time is the process and the approach — what the board calls a model of mutual stewardship.
The MKSOA is “a new community-based management model that for the first time includes cultural practitioners, lineal descendants, and natural resource and education experts from throughout the community as mutual stewards of Mauna Kea,” said Kaʻiu Kimura, director of the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center at the University of Hawaii in Hilo, speaking Jan. 9 at a session of the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle, Washington. The board still faces many challenges, and potential skepticism from activists who seek a smaller footprint or total removal of astronomical facilities from Mauna Kea. But its members say they have found the common ground that seemed unreachable in 2019, when protests and tensions flared.
“There really was what appeared to be a no-win situation back then, and no way of how this was going to be resolved between the community and government and astronomy field,” MKSOA board member and native rights activist Noe Noe Wong-Wilson told Astronomy at the AAS meeting. “It’s still early in the life of the new authority, but there’s actually a pathway forward.”
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