We’re liking this thought-proving post from journalist Anne Minard, on the “next great telescope race”–Day 14 of her “100 Days of Science.” She asks some great questions about the fundamental purpose of the two U.S. proposals for “next generation” giant land-based telescopes being proposed for construction within the next 10 years. Do we really need [...]
Posts Tagged ‘mauna kea’
Collaborate Much?
Posted in Haleakala, conservation, island sustainability, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged mauna kea, telescopes, astronomy, Haleakala, imperialsim on August 8, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Exemptions Gone Wild
Posted in Northwest Hawaiian Islands, activism, island sustainability, land and cultural rights, ocean protection, telescopes, tagged land and cultural rights, NWHI, process, mauna kea, Haleakala, HEPA on August 4, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Generally, under today’s environmental laws, certain kinds of projects have to do an environmental review (Like an EIS). Other kinds of projects can be exempted. The BP oil spill at Deepwater Horizon has been a sobering reminder of why these kinds of environmental reviews and exemptions are so critical. (Can you believe THIS was exempted [...]
Manufacturing Consent
Posted in Haleakala, activism, mauna kea, tagged activism, mauna kea, Haleakala, sacred summits on August 3, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The UH Board of Regents made big “TAH-DAH!” over approving their giant Thirty Meter Telescope project for Mauna Kea this summer. Plenty press releases, plenty press. KAHEA staff tend to kind of shrug over this kind of “approval”, but after hearing so many comments and questions from all of you, we decided we should address [...]
Leg 2010: Post-Mortem
Posted in activism, legislature, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged mauna kea, sacred summits on April 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From Marti: This legislative session didn’t turn out to be as bad as it could have been for our natural and cultural resources. By mid-session this year, there were proposals to drastically weaken our EIS law, transfer 54% of the Division of Aquatic Resources to HIMB for groundskeepers (really, Dr. Leong? You know, City Mill [...]
Self-audit = No kind of audit at all
Posted in activism, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged mauna kea, sacred summits on April 30, 2010 | 4 Comments »
From Marti: Unfortunately, legislators still could not find the courage to figure out what is going on with the telescopes on Mauna Kea. Instead of requiring an actual financial audit by the State Auditor of the private use of public (ceded) lands on the summit, legislators asked the University of Hawaii for a report… another [...]
Kāhea for Mauna Kea
Posted in activism, conservation, mauna kea, tagged action alert, fair rent resos, mauna kea, mauna kea action alert on April 19, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Interviews with Debbie Ward and Kealoha Pisciotta, two members of the Mauna Kea Hui, with the call to stop desecration and destruction of sacred sites and unique native habitat on Mauna Kea’s summit. We know that artificially low rent–of $1/year–paid by some of the wealthiest institutions and corporations in the world is accelerating industrialization of [...]
LTE from Honolulu Advertiser
Posted in activism, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged mauna kea, public trust lands on March 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Mahalo to Nancy for the following letter in the Honolulu Advertiser a few days ago: I was struck by the brilliance of a campaign that came through my e-mail this past week. It provides a fresh look at solutions to Hawai’i’s budget shortfalls; ideas that have yet to be considered and answers that have been [...]
Hawaiians, mountain in ‘Avatar’-like struggle
Posted in conservation, environmental justice, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged astronomy, avatar, CMP, mauna kea, telescope, thirty meter telescope, TMT, University of Hawaii on March 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From Marti: Great editorial in the Sacramento Bee yesterday about the analogies between the struggle depicted in the movie Avatar and the real world struggle to protect the last pristine plateau of Mauna Kea. Here’s a quote: The California astronomers’ “unobtanium” quest – research papers revealing “the secrets of the universe” and identifying planets beyond [...]
No Property, No Say, and No Plan
Posted in land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged activism, mauna kea, mauna kea CMP on February 18, 2010 | 1 Comment »
From Miwa: Back in January, we posted here about some disappointing news: the denial by the Hawai’i State Board of Land and Natural Resources (Land Board) and Judge Hara (3rd Circuit) of our right to a administrative review (contested case) on UH’s new “management plan” for Mauna Kea. We have now waded through the findings [...]
Point Missed
Posted in conservation, island sustainability, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged CMP, conservation, hawaii island, mauna kea, maunakea, telescopes, TMT, University of Hawaii on December 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From Marti: News coverage of the court hearing on the University’s plans for Mauna Kea characterized our opposition to the plan as anti-development. It said: “(opponents) want to block new development on the mountain by stopping approval of the management plan.” As one of our kupuna pointed out, actually the motivation is all the University’s [...]
Mauna Kea Court Case Update
Posted in conservation, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged CMP, conservation, court, mauna kea, maunakea, telescopes, TMT on December 10, 2009 | 1 Comment »
From Marti: Yesterday morning, the Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments on the University of Hawaii’s motion to dismiss our appeal for a contested case hearing on the University’s new management plan for Mauna Kea. Though we are still waiting for the judge’s ruling, the hearing made one thing clear: supporters of this “CMP” also [...]
Uh, Seriously?
Posted in conservation, mauna kea, tagged BLNR, contested case, mauna kea on October 2, 2009 | 1 Comment »
“Uh, seriously?” –is probably the best way to describe our response to the BLNR’s recent decision that Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners and conservationists (like Sierra Club members) have no standing to speak for the fate of public trust lands like Mauna Kea. And so, as people generally do when faced with crappy* administrative decision-making, we [...]
Cultural Practioners Respond to TMT
Posted in conservation, land and cultural rights, tagged conservation, cultural practice, cultural rights, mauna kea on July 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From Kealoha Pisciotta, President of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou and one of KAHEA’s Board of Directors: As a former telescope system specialist on Mauna Kea, I value both Polynesian and modern astronomy. Unfortunately, the West Hawaii Today editorial endorsing the Thirty Meter Telescope Board’s selection of Mauna Kea over Chile contained several inaccuracies—and one insult [...]
Mauna Kea Site Chosen for TMT
Posted in 1, conservation, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged cultural practice, cultural rights, mauna kea, sacred summit on July 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
From Alana: This week Mauna Kea was chosen as the site for the Thirty Meter Telescope. It was chosen over a location in the Chilean Atacama Desert. In the weeks prior to the decision, some people thought that Mauna Kea might not be chosen because of its significantly higher cost, but was anyone actually surprised [...]
How many telescopes?
Posted in activism, conservation, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, telescopes, tagged activism, land and cultural rights, legislature, mauna kea, sacred summit on June 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From Alana: Following last night’s passionate hearing regarding the proposed Mauna Kea Thirty-meter telescope, a letter to the editor to was sent to The Star Bulletin strongly opposing the telescope. The letter details the long history of cheating and cutting corners, in terms of environmental and cultural laws, that Mauna Kea developers have had. Testifiers at [...]
Action Alert: Unite to Save the Scared Summits!
Posted in activism, conservation, environmental justice, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged conservation, culture, Haleakala, mauna kea, sacred summit, science, telescope on June 17, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Plans for major construction in the sensitive ecosystems of our most sacred summits continue to push forward, despite significant opposition from the community. The University of Hawaii has filed two environmental impact statements — one for the world’s largest telescope in the world’s only tropical alpine desert, and another for a duplicative solar telescope in [...]
UH Battles on for Massive Telescope
Posted in 1, mauna kea, tagged mauna kea on June 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From Alana: Perhaps Instead of a clearer picture of the space outside our world, those on the high slopes of Mauna Kea need to have a better focus of what is nearest to them. For over 30 years the University of Hawai’i system has been adamant about constructing as many telescopes as possible on the [...]
Insanity Reigns at Hawaii’s State Capitol
Posted in conservation, island sustainability, land and cultural rights, legislature, mauna kea, tagged conservation, deficit, editorial, funding, hui ku maoli ola, kahua ranch, ma'o, mauna kea, native ecosystem, Natural Area Reserve, telescopes on April 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
From Marti: The Hawaii Legislature is seriously considering a raid on our most important conservation funds in order to balance the state budget. This is insane given all that these few millions do to protect the quality of our drinking water, the health of our native ecosystems, and truly local jobs. But, the insanity goes [...]
Legislative Update
Posted in 1, activism, conservation, gmo, land and cultural rights, legislature, mauna kea, tagged activism, beach access, bills, gmo, legislation, legislature, mauna kea, shoreline, taro, update on March 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From Marti: This is just a quick run down on the status of some of the local legislation we are watching this session. Tomorrow is second lateral – the day when surviving bills have to be delivered to their final committee. The next major deadline is April 9th. GOOD BILLS SB 1088 – Seeks to [...]
Saving the Palila
Posted in conservation, mauna kea, tagged endangered speies, mauna kea, palila on March 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
To all our friends who have been working so hard on protections for the endangered Palila bird on the Big Island, thanks for continuing to push for the survival of this species! http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090324/BREAKING01/90324021/-1/RSS01?source=rss_breaking A court filing yesterday accused the state Department of Land and Natural Resources of failing to fully comply with court orders to [...]
Omission.
Posted in land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged comprehensive management plan, mauna kea on March 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Update on press coverage of the Land Board hearings on the Mauna Kea Management Plan: The Advertiser reprinted Jason Armstrong’s article from yesterday’s HTH today, but omitted Barry Taniguchi’s quote “endorsing” the UH Management Plan: “We don’t have anything now, and anything is better than nothing, I think,” he said. Hmmm.
Anything is better than nothing?
Posted in conservation, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged conservation, mauna kea, summit on March 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »
From today’s HTH, on UH’s proposed management plan for Mauna Kea: http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2009/03/19/local_news/local02.txt “We don’t have anything now, and anything is better than nothing, I think,” he said. Could UH’s Barry Taniguchi have given a weaker endorsement of the UH Mauna Kea “management” plan he himself has been lobbying in favoring of? Forgive us if we [...]
The Going Rate
Posted in land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged cultural rights, mauna kea on March 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
UH lobbyists like to say that “viewing time” on Mauna Kea isn’t a cash transaction and development of Mauna Kea isn’t about about money… but Yale is paying $12 million for 15 nights/year of viewing time on one Mauna Kea telescope for the next ten years. That’s $12 million for 150 nights = $80,000 per [...]
R.I.P. SB 502
Posted in activism, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged alpine, conservation, cultural rights, mauna kea, sacred, summit on March 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
3 down, 1 to go! Thanks to the public’s vigilant support and participation SB 502 is officially dead!! Yay! SB 502 was one of four bills proposing to transfer management of one of the Pacific’s most unique and sacred summits, Mauna Kea, over to its primary developer–the University of Hawaii. The University has facilitated forty [...]
10-to-1 opposed and they still passed it
Posted in activism, land and cultural rights, mauna kea, tagged astronomy, conservation district, hawaii, legislation, management, mauna kea, sacred summit, University of Hawaii on March 5, 2009 | 2 Comments »
From Marti: The bill to transfer management of the sacred summit of Mauna Kea to the University of Hawaii passed the state’s House Finance Committee on Tuesday. By the Committee’s own count, 900 people submitted testimony in opposition to the 10 or so in support. This number is not counting the testimony submitted by a [...]

