University of Hawaii regents approve Mauna Kea Master Plan despite testimony condemning Thirty Meter Telescope

The University of Hawaii Board of Regents on Thursday approved an updated Mauna Kea Master Plan that guides oversight of the mountain for the next 20 years and accommodates the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope if and when it is built.

Approval came despite more than two hours of testimony dominated by those who oppose the plan and who objected strenuously to the $2.65 billion TMT, many of them Native Hawaiians.

Several regents said that while the master plan might not be perfect, it’s better than its predecessor plan, approved in 2000, and having an updated document in place is better than not having one at all.

Before the vote, Chairman Randy Moore said Mauna Kea by far has been the most difficult issue facing the regents in the nine years he has served on the board.

“Mauna Kea is in some ways a symbol for injustices that have gone back 129 years,” Moore told the virtual meeting. “Whatever happens with the master plan, whatever happens with the telescopes, it will not address those issues. It is something, as a total community, that we have to figure out how to make things right.”

Moore was part of the majority in a 7-1 vote to adopt the plan. The lone vote against was Diane Paloma.

The master plan comes with a commitment that a maximum of nine observatories will be atop Hawaii’s tallest mountain after 2033, when UH’s lease of the Mauna Kea Science Reserve expires. There are currently 13 telescopes, with four to be decommissioned, and if the TMT is built, a fifth would be taken out of operation.

Meanwhile, plans for the cutting-edge TMT are on hold while its nonprofit developers work with the National Science Foundation to forge a partnership with hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding.

The updated Mauna Kea Master Plan was developed over several years with input from individuals, groups and agencies including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Maunakea Management Board and the Native Hawaiian advisory group Kahu Ku Mauna.

The overall goals of the plan, officials said, are to improve stewardship, maintain leadership in astronomy, enhance educational opportunities and seek a balance among those who come to Mauna Kea.

The plan, officials said, aims to increase Native Hawaiian and community involvement in planning and programming, to limit development and reduce impacts to the cultural and natural landscape. The plans also describes the gradual transformation of the Halepohaku area into a “multidisciplinary field station” home to additional programs.

The university received more than 1,450 comments about the draft plan during a more than monthlong public comment period that ended in late October.

University officials say the plan is neutral on the TMT, a project that is authorized and permitted by the state. If the TMT is not built, the site will be available for another telescope, although the number of telescopes will continue to be restricted to nine by the end of 2033, according to the plan.

During more than two hours of testimony in the morning, the vast majority of those who spoke on the topic condemned the master plan, the university’s stewardship of the mountain and its support for the TMT.

A number of speakers drew a line between the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and the actions of the regents. They said the plan was part of the oppression of the ongoing “illegal occupation” of Hawaii and the genocide of the Indigenous population.

“These are not University of Hawaii lands,” said Kalei Ka‘eo, a UH Maui College Hawaiian studies professor and spokesman for Haleakala Kako‘o. “These are lands we have never given one consent to — to the ugliness and evil that have been put upon our people and our lands.”

UH employee Halealani Sonoda-Pale said for decades kanaka maoli have been calling for the protection of Mauna Kea and more recently demonstrated en masse against the TMT.

“The UH continues to make the building of TMT and development a priority,” she said. “The Indigenous people of Hawaii have an internationally recognized human right to self-determination and have over the past 12 years clearly exercised that right and said no to the building of TMT on Mauna Kea, which is 100% stolen Hawaiian lands.”

A handful of people testified in favor of the master plan, including Mauna Kea astronomer Thayne Currie, who said UH has done an exceptional job of managing the summit for at least the past decade.

Currie pointed out that the updated master plan codifies a net reduction in telescopes, a feature that was not in the 2000 plan, which actually envisioned more telescopes.

“In other words, if you are against this plan, you are against a plan to have fewer telescopes,” he said.

But Currie did agree with John O’Meara, deputy director of the Keck Observatory and spokesman for the Maunakea Observatories, who said the plan should describe more meaningful partnerships and collaboration with the Native Hawaiian community.

UH Manoa English professor Candace Fujikane said the plan fails to establish a decision-making process that involves community members who have deep knowledge of ancestral practices of stewardship as reflected in Hawaiian song and chant.

In addition, the plan, she said, favors astronomical facilities over stewardship of the mountain.

“This ignores the voices of an overwhelming majority of people who have spoken against the Thirty Meter Telescope,” Fujikane said.