Hawaiians persist in telescope fight

MAUNA KEA, Hawaii — Singing, chanting and laying on the ground in the road, hundreds of people demonstrated Monday against the construction of a giant telescope on a mountaintop that some Native Hawaiians consider sacred.

The protests were the latest salvo in a yearslong fight that pits scientific discovery against cultural preservation.

Scientists hope the massive telescope planned for the site, a world-renowned location for astronomy, will help them peer back to the time just after the Big Bang and answer fundamental questions about the universe. But some Native Hawaiians consider the land holy, as a realm of gods and a place of worship.

At about daybreak Monday, a group of kupuna, or elders, sitting in chairs tied themselves together with rope and blocked the road to the summit of Mauna Kea. Another group of protesters lay prone on the ground, with their arms shackled under a grate in the road.

The road was officially closed hours after it was essentially blocked by protesters.

After two protest leaders spoke with police, they addressed the crowd and told them anyone who didn’t move would be arrested. The group would move aside, but the elders were expected to remain, protest leaders Kaho’okahi Kanuha and Andre Perez said.

By mid-afternoon, law enforcement hadn’t arrested anybody, saying their priority was installing concrete barriers along a nearby highway to create a buffer between speeding cars and the large number of protesters congregating in the area.

Those on the grate left after being told they wouldn’t be arrested.

Walter Ritte, an activist, said it was difficult lying there for 11 hours. He said protesters’ arms were connected through a series of metal pipes under the grate. Authorities would have had to cut the pipes to remove them, he said.

“It was so cold at 4 o’clock in the morning,” Ritte said. “It was a test of our fortitude. This mountain is like our last stand.”

The project has been delayed by years of legal battles and demonstrations. Scientists selected Mauna Kea as the telescope site in 2009.