By Ayah Elwannas
On the morning of July 15 — the day on which Hawaii Gov. David Ige announced work would begin on the island's contentious Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project — a line of elder natives, known as the kūpuna, stood on the highway leading up to Maunakea Summit. Each elder was assigned a caretaker who tended to their health and nutritional needs while awaiting and obstructing access to the TMT's production team. Farther up the lane, a party of seven Native Hawaiian protectors tied themselves to cattle guards in protest against the construction on their pious land.
The group's first and second days at Maunakea, among Hawaiian cosmology's most sacred sites, ended without incident. Yet on the morning of July 17, unlawful arrests began.
The legal battle over Maunakea has been in the making for more than ten years, with the 2018 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that construction for TMT must commence. With legal permission, the company behind the telescope said it would be willing to move the project to La Palma, Spain if it continues to face cultural obstacles in Hawaii.
The significant problems at stake right currently include years of legal conflict between the Hawaiian Government, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) makers, and the Hawaiian Native people. Among other concerns, there are criticisms about whether the state followed proper protocol during the process, from the stages of permitting and planning through how they engaged the public to the final construction approvals. The state argues they did the latter appropriately.
Through construction projects on Mauna Kea, chaos and destruction ignite. There are 13 observatories on Mauna Kea, which have been continuously seen as an environmental concern. Construction has led to several oil spills on the mountain, and the observatories use a variety of toxic chemicals in their activities, which may jeopardize the island's water supply and quality.
Hawaiian protestors continue to defend their land, environment, and ecosystem.
Comments