An international project to build the Thirty Meter Telescope — the world’s largest ground-based observatory — on Hawaii’s largest mountain has hit a snag, with locals staging island-wide protests blocking the telescope’s construction for over four weeks.
Protesters, mostly native Hawaiians, question how the location of yet another telescope on a summit that already has 13 of them (and of which five will be decommissioned before TMT is set up) is justified. In Hawaiian culture, Mauna Kea is seen as ‘Wao Akua’ — the realm of the gods — and is considered a sacred symbol to be left alone.
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) was to be constructed on Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island. The $1.4 billion project was the result of an international collaboration between the USA, Japan, China and India, with the goal of studying the early universe, exoplanets and the farthest black holes with unparalleled precision.
Named so for its proposed diameter of 30 meters, the telescope would eventually yield images that are more than 12 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope, according to the official TMT website.
This is not the first time that the TMT has met with local opposition. Large protests in 2015 halted the TMT’s groundbreaking ceremony and put a freeze to the project. Since then, legal challenges encumbered the TMT until the US Supreme Court declared that its permit was valid in 2018.
Critics of the project, such say it is not an issue of locals being ‘anti-progress’ but rather that of the larger question of indigenous rights. Writing in Nature, Rosie Alegado, a Native Hawaiian scientist and professor at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, says that Mauna Kea is ‘kapu’ to the Hawaiians — a native word concerning ethics whose meaning ranges from‘restricted’ or ‘forbidden’ to even ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’.
In local belief, the mountain was to be left alone, but instead, multiple observatories were constructed over the year on its premises, hurting local sentiments. Prominent Hollywood figures like Dwayne Johnson and Jason Momoa (who is from Hawaii) have also joined in the protests.
The TMT International Observatory say that care was taken to pick a location that did not have archaeological shrines, burial grounds or environmentally sensitive features.. Defending against the charge that the TMT could have been built in place of one of the island’s existing telescopes, the organisation says that this “would require a large amount of grading, most of it in wekiu habitat, and because the visual impact would be much greater.”
Following the strengthening of the protests, a controversial emergency proclamation issued on July 17 by Hawaii’s governor David Ige resulted in the arrest and subseqeuent release of several Native Hawaiian elders. In an open letter, astrophysics graduate students from the partner institutions of the TMT called for a peaceful resolution of the crisis keeping in mind the broader historical context of marginalizing and racializing indigenous communities.
Criticizing the decision to include unarmed National Guard soldiers as part of the security force, the statement read, “We write today not to place a value judgment on the future of TMT on Maunakea, but to question the methods by which we are getting the telescope on the mountain in the first place.”
After having revoked the proclamation on July 30, the governor has asked the Mayor of Hawaii County, Harry Kim to discuss possible alternatives with the local leaders. He also extended the time period within which the construction on the telescope could begin to 2021.
The alternative to building in Hawaii is also riddled with complications.
A backup option for the location of the telescope is in Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, part of Spain’s Canary Islands. Here too, the group ‘Ecologists in Action’ has raised concerns about the environmental impacts of the project.
In addition to this, the lower elevation of this location as compared to Mauna Kea would mean that the quality of the images received would be inferior.
The location change could also mean uncertainty regarding the funding of the project. Funds from the US National Science Foundation could no longer be forthcoming as the project will not be located in its territory. For the other countries involved like India, China and Japan, the farther location in Canary Islands might be another issue.
there is a need to address the flawed perception that native beliefs are irreconcilable with western science, she stresses the need for science to be viewed as a part of culture and for respect towards “indigenous forms of inquiry”.
Responding to the mischaracterization of the opposition of the Native Hawaiians to the project as being ‘anti- progress’ in a piece on the website of the prestigious journal Nature, said that the scientific community should exercise caution while pressing forward with the implementation of the project.
Linking the crisis to
Voicing their concerns regarding the apathy towards a sacred symbol of theirs, the protesters question
