UC Divest TMT

Mauna Kea Protectors at the base of a series of steps chanting and praying for the rejection to TMT. The background features a blue sky and green trees and some passerbys on the lawn.

The Problem | Background | Mvmnt Vision | Take Action | Connect w/ US

The Problem

Summary

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a planned project to build a telescope with a mirror three times larger than any existing telescope. The Thirty Meter Telescope is being designed and developed by the TMT International Observatory LLC (TIO) and is expected to cost about $2.4 billion to construct. Currently, construction for the TMT is occurring on the summit of Mauna Kea, one of the most (if not the most) sacred sites in Hawaii. If completed, the TMT will be 18 stories tall and take up 1.4 acres of land on Mauna Kea.

In 1968, Hawaii's Board of Land and Natural Resources leased 11,000 acres on Mauna Kea to the University of Hawaii as a science reserve. Since then, 13 telescopes have been built on Mauna Kea. An audit conducted in 1998 by the State of Hawaii’s Office of the Auditor showed that the University of Hawaii prioritized the profits gained from research conducted at the telescopes over the protection and preservation of Mauna Kea.

Background

Artwork by IG @mahealanidesigns. — *Artwork by IG* *@mahealanidesigns*.

The UC has failed Indigenous peoples.

As land-grant institutions, the University of California (UC) has responsibilities to its Native students yet they continue to ignore the loud and clear opposition to the TMT from Indigenous students and faculty at the UC Board of Regent’s Meetings. They express this neglect through their voice in funding, advising, and decisions. Most importantly, without the free, prior, and informed consent of the Indigenous people of Hawaiʻi, the UC is directly violating Articles 11, 12, 19, 25, 26, 29 and 32 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as published in an open letter from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Instead of focusing on students’ immediate physical and mental health needs during a global pandemic, the UC has prioritized funding more than $50 million into TMT despite environmental degradation. Instead of supporting Black students and faculty in the face of global anti-Blackness among police forces, the UC desecrated indigenous sacred land through neo-colonialism. As the chair of TMT project, UCSB’s Chancellor, Henry Yang, has neglected his duty to serve his Native and non-Native students through lack of aid and harm to culturally critical land.

The TMT is a direct act of colonization.

The colonization of Native and Indigenous lands has been ongoing for hundreds of years. The people of Hawai’i have encountered multiple colonizers--from the British to the Spanish and to the United States. All of these colonizers have forcefully imposed ideologies, religion, politics, and capitalism upon Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), aiming to assimilate them and gain control of their natural resources, including their people. Colonization has and is still affecting Native Hawaiians and the ancestral homeland of Mauna Kea, which also is home to nonkin species and plants. The relationship of the land to the people in the eyes of the colonizers is unimportant--what they see is the outcome of profit or expansion of profit. The continuation and expansion of the TMT feeds into a system that allows desecration, disrespect and suppression of Indigenous knowledge. To allow the continuous colonization of Indigenous lands is supporting colonization of the self. When in solidarity and collaboration, people change the wave of thought. The resistance must be as strong as Mauna Kea.

*Top of Mauna Kea shaved off for the 13 telescopes already built. The Mauna is littered by these structures.*

The TMT has a short lifecycle but long-term social and environmental impacts.

For fifty years, none of the universities or developers have decommissioned their telescopes at the end of their life-cycle. TMT will not do any better. The sole construction and destruction of telescopes on the Mauna permanently damage the delicate ecosystem of Mauna Kea’s summit, and the culture intimately intertwined with it: mountaintops are shaved down creating altitude loss, weather pattern changes; the aquifer and natural watershed sources are damaged; endangered species lose their home, all together significantly damaging Native Hawaiians. The lands - the plants, animals, and waters - are all a part of the Native Hawaiian cultural identity. Losing any part of the Creator’s gifts is losing a part of themselves.

Hawaii does not have the resources to treat the 10,400 weekly gallons of contaminated wastewater the TMT will produce, putting at risk the culturally entwined environment and endangering workers engaged in dangerous mountain transport. The Mauna’s beautiful and steep mountain roads already lead to twenty-five fatal accidents per year according to Mauna Access Roads; the increase in transportation would undoubtedly cause major spillage, groundwater contamination, environmental damage, and grounds for lawsuits against TMT.

We are fighting for ethical research and indigenous sovereignty, not opposing scientific progress.

Opponents of the TMT do not oppose science; they oppose the system that allows TMT to be built. Similarly, Native Hawaiians do not oppose science; they are fighting for self-determination and the power to decide what to do on their land. Native Hawaiians have a rich history in astronomy, having used the stars to navigate the seas for centuries. It is because of Kanaka Maoli’s relationship to nature, to land, and to the water that they are fighting to protect Mauna Kea. While those who are constructing the TMT, or hope to use it for their work, may view their actions as non-violent contributions to the scientific community, they are directly benefiting from settler colonialism and the disenfranchisement of Native Hawaiians. The UC does not have ties to the land it occupies in the same way that Kanaka Maoli has ties to Hawaii. Ethical science has to be informed by and dependent on the morals and values of society, and it cannot be limited to Western definitions of “ethics”.

MOVEMENT VISION

Kapu Aloha

Kapu is to set apart; to prohibit; to make sacred or holy.

Aloha is to love; show mercy; to have compassion upon.

RELATIONSHIPS
- Respect for each other.
- Re-affirmation of our connections.
- ‘Aina, Akua/Aumakua, Kanaka/Kupuna.
DISCIPLINE
- When it’s difficult to maintain Kapu Aloha.
NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION
- Always the primary goal.

We stand with our 38 Kūpuna (elders) who were arrested on Mauna Kea.

On July 17, 2019, 38 Kūpuna were arrested at the construction road of Mauna Kea following Governor Ige’s emergency proclamation giving law enforcement increased powers to “handle” Kia’i. Removal of na Kūpuna was an act of state violence, and we watched the University of California sit idly by as their investment directly funded it.

As Kia’i have said since the beginning, consent has NEVER and will NEVER be given. TMT can only advance through state violence against Indigenous land protectors. As students of the University of California system, we will not stay silent as our tuition dollars are used to enact such violence. UC is a Land-Grab University, built on stolen Native land and TMT continues to exemplify this legacy of institutional racism and colonial violence.

We stand in solidarity with UC Cops off Campus to #DefundUCPD and call for an end to the militant policing of students on campus. We call out for an end to the state surveillance of Indigenous protectors and for ALL charges to be dropped against na Kūpuna who were arrested defending this land.

Will we allow TMT to be built?

-NEVER-

Will we stand up for indigenous rights?

-ALWAYS-

TAKE ACTION

Updates & Actions

Hawai’i People’s Fund Huli 2021 Fundraiser Nov 20th - Dec 10th
- When donating you can select Mauna Kea Education & Awareness (MKEA) to be gifted 40% of your donation to continue spreading awareness & being a presence for the Mauna. MKEA has helped support the Protect Mauna Kea movement in numerous ways throughout the years & continue to today.
November Board of Regents Meeting
July action at UC Office of the President
Genocide in Tigray
- To learn more follow the following on insta: @peaceintigray @standwithtigray @omnatigray
- If interested in donating check out linktree or message Diana: https://linktr.ee/istandwithtigray

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