Three years after protesters camped on a mountain in Hawaii to stop construction of a major new observatory, Native Hawaiians have won the right to help make decisions about future science projects on Mauna Kea.
“A new state law (says) Mauna Kea must be protected for future generations and that science must be balanced with culture and the environment. Native Hawaiian cultural experts will have voting seats on a new governing body, instead of merely advising the summit’s managers as they do now,” The Associated Press reported.
The new body will help reduce tension surrounding the site, which is significant both religiously and scientifically.
“Mauna Kea (is) a mountain sacred to Native Hawaiians that’s also one of the finest places in the world to study the night sky,” according to the AP.
Why is Mauna Kea sacred?
For Native Hawaiians, the summit of Mauna Kea is a holy place where humans aren’t meant to dwell. The mountain is viewed by many as an ancestor, since a “centuries-old chant” presents Mauna Kea as the child of “Wakea and Papawalinu’u, the male and female sources of all life,” the AP reported.
In other words, for Native Hawaiians, protecting the mountain is about more than ensuring that scientific projects don’t cause environmental harm.
“Protecting the mountain from desecration is more than a cultural responsibility; it’s a lineal duty to those who came before them and the generations who will succeed them,” Vox reported in 2020.
When did Mauna Kea start being used by astronomers?
In the past, before Mauna Kea became the site of multiple telescopes, the mountain was reserved for use by religious leaders.
“Historically, only select individuals — such as the kahuna, or priests, or the ali‘i, high chiefs — were permitted on the mountain in order to perform ceremonies of affairs, and they wouldn’t stay long,” Vox reported.
But in 1968, the state gave the University of Hawaii a 65-year lease to Mauna Kea’s summit, which the school then used to form partnerships with researchers from across the country and around the world.
“Astronomers like Mauna Kea’s summit because of its clear skies, dry air and limited light pollution make it the best place to study space from the Northern Hemisphere. Its dozen huge telescopes have played key roles in advancing humanity’s understanding of the universe, including making some of the first images of planets outside our solar system,” the AP reported.
The website for the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii explains that the telescopes on the mountain are used by experts from 11 countries.
“The combined light-gathering power of the telescopes on Mauna Kea is fifteen times greater than that of the Palomar telescope in California — for many years the world’s largest — and sixty times greater than that of the Hubble Space Telescope,” it reads.
Were the telescopes on Mauna Kea always controversial?
From the beginning, Native Hawaiians took issue with the summit of Mauna Kea being used for astronomical research. The telescopes constructed after the lease agreement led more people to come to the mountain who don’t understand its spiritual significance and “changed the summit landscape,” the AP reported.
In 2019, the situation came to a head when construction was about to begin on the Thirty Meter Telescope, which the AP called “the biggest and most advanced observatory yet.” Protesters put themselves between builders and the construction site and stayed there for nearly nine months.
The protest site “hosted anywhere between 30 and 3,000 people at any given time,” Vox reported.
The protest followed years of legal action challenging the pricey building project. The Hawaii Supreme Court revoked the project’s permit in 2015 amid a legal challenge, but the state government was able to move the project forward again in 2017, according to Nature.
After the protests, supporters and opponents of the new telescope came together to try to find a better path forward. The new governing body, the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, was created as a result of their talks, the AP reported.
What does the future hold for Mauna Kea?
In the short term, the new governing body, which will be comprised of 11 voting members, including at least one practitioner of Native Hawaiian culture and one direct descendant of someone with knowledge of Mauna Kea traditions, will consider a number of important issues, including whether to renew the University of Hawaii’s original 65-year lease, according to the AP.
“New lease arrangements must be ready by 2027 or the observatories will have to begin winding down,” the article said.
The Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority will also likely play a role in determining whether the new Thirty Meter Telescope can finally be built.
“Its backers still want to build on Mauna Kea, though they have selected a site in Spain’s Canary Islands as a backup,” the AP reported.
In its approach to these decisions and others, the governing body will try to show through their work that it’s possible for groundbreaking science and sacred beliefs to coexist.
“The new authority may offer a first-in-the-world test case for whether astronomers can find a way to respectfully and responsibly study the universe from Indigenous and culturally significant lands,” the AP reported.