Nearly a thousand scientists and astronomers have now signed an open letter in solidarity with those who would like to see a halt in construction.Īnd some have suggested that the Thirty Meter Telescope should be built in the Canary Islands instead, where an existing telescope complex enjoys a lofty perch over the Atlantic Ocean. Many native Hawaiians say the way this fight has been portrayed in the media-as Hawaiian culture versus science-is disrespectful of their culture, ignorant of their motives, and oblivious to the fact that science has long been an important part of traditional Hawaiian culture. Winter says there needs to be a new model for integrating Indigenous peoples into the process. It doesn’t matter what the reason is.” Credit: Makawalu Photography This time it’s for science, this time it’s for knowledge, so now it should be OK, right? But it’s the same thing that’s been happening for 200 years. It’s all of these issues, but this time it’s for a good reason. It’s desecration of sacred places through construction. It’s preventing people from accessing sacred places. “From the native Hawaiian perspective this is just the same thing that’s happened before. “But is it pursuit of knowledge at all costs? Is it pursuit of knowledge at the expense of our humanity? “The notion of pursuit of knowledge is an important one here,” Kawika Winter, a multidisciplinary ecologist at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and the He’eia National Estuarine Research Reserve, told Science Friday in an interview earlier this week. However, many native Hawaiians don’t want it there for a multitude of reasons: Now, astronomers want to build another, called the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, which would become the largest visible-light telescope on the mountain. There are already 13 observatories on the summit plateau. That high altitude, combined with the mountain’s dry, still air and its extreme darkness at night, make it an ideal place for astronomy. Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in Hawaii, towering over the Pacific at nearly 14,000 feet. Demonstrators mobilize at the base of Mauna Kea to stop construction vehicles from proceeding to the summit.
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