Mauna Kea and Native Hawaiian Culture

To Native Hawaiians (Kānaka Maoli), Mauna Kea is more than a scenic peak. It is Mauna a Wākea, the firstborn child of the sky father Wākea and the earth mother Papahānaumoku, the piko (umbilical centre) that links earth and sky, and an ancestor, a kupuna, to whom the living owe the duties of family. That genealogy, more than any general sense of reverence, is why the summit is sacred, and why building on it is felt as harm done to a relative.

The long conflict over the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is often told as science against culture. It is better understood as a dispute over consent, stewardship and more than 50 years of documented mismanagement by the state and the university, on a mountain where astronomy and wayfinding are themselves Hawaiian traditions. For a visitor, respect is practical: observe kapu aloha, stay on the roads and trails, never build or move rock stacks, do not climb the true summit cone (Puʻuwēkiu) or enter Lake Waiau, give way to cultural practitioners, and choose Hawaiian-led or Hawaiian-partnered guides. Asking honestly whether to go to the summit at all is a fair part of that.

If you would like to learn the mountain from a Native Hawaiian guide, the evening below is led by one. It walks the lower Humuʻula Trail to 9,394 ft, well below the summit, and tells the night sky through Hawaiian tradition and celestial navigation. Check dates and the live price here.

Why the Summit Is Sacred: Mauna a Wākea

In Hawaiian accounts of creation, the earth mother Papahānaumoku and the sky father Wākea gave birth to the islands, and Hawaiʻi Island was their firstborn. The cultural practitioner and scholar Pualani Kanakaʻole Kanahele, in a 1999 oral-history study by Kumu Pono Associates, described it this way: “Mauna Kea is considered to be kupuna, the first born, and is held in high esteem… identified as ‘Ka Mauna a Wākea.’” In the tradition Kanahele documented, the mountain is “ka makahiapo kapu na Wākea”, the sacred firstborn of Wākea. As the firstborn, it is the piko, the navel or umbilical centre, of the island, “the cord that binds the people to their ancestors.”

The relationship is one of family. The Mauna Kea Comprehensive Management Plan, drawing on Kanahele and Kanahele (1997), describes the mountain as the hiapo (firstborn) island-child of Wākea and Papahānaumoku. Later in the genealogy, humans descend from Wākea and his daughter Hoʻohōkūkalani (“Creator of the stars”). Their stillborn first child, Hāloa, became the kalo (taro) plant, and their second child, also named Hāloa, became the ancestor of the Hawaiian people. That makes Mauna Kea the elder sibling of both the kalo and the Kānaka. As Dr. Noe Noe Wong-Wilson explains: “Mauna Kea is the place where the earth mother — or Papa — meets sky father, Wākea. And so all life begins at that point.”

The mountain appears in mele hānau (birth chants) too, including one for Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III): “O hānau ka mauna a Kea, / ʻŌpuʻu aʻe ka mauna a Kea” (“Born of Kea was the mountain, / The mountain of Kea budded forth”). Because the mountain is kupuna, an ancestor and elder, what Kānaka Maoli feel towards it is a family duty of care and reciprocity. It is not the admiration a tourist brings to a view. Our guide to whether Mauna Kea is a volcano sets this cosmology beside the mountain’s geology.

Other Experiences You Might Enjoy

Much of the best cultural learning on the Big Island happens away from the summit: the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, where Hawaiian language and wayfinding sit alongside the astronomy; Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau, the place of refuge in South Kona; the great temple at Puʻukoholā Heiau on the Kohala Coast; the fishponds of Kaloko-Honokōhau near Kona; and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, home of Pele. Tours and tickets around the island:

The Deities of the Mountain

The summit region is home to a group of related female akua (deities) who personify the mountain’s water. Poliʻahu, the snow goddess, whose name is often glossed “cloaked bosom”, is the best known. Her rivalry with Pele, the volcano goddess, is one of the lasting stories of the elements, told as a sledding (heʻe hōlua) contest between them. Her sisters and companions include Lilinoe, goddess of fine mist (also linked with Haleakalā, “dead fires” and desolation, and connected in tradition with burial); Waiau, associated with Lake Waiau, whose name means “water of sufficient depth to bathe”; and Kahoupokāne, a kapa-maker associated with Hualālai, whose kapa-beating is heard as thunder. A traditional chant recorded by cultural educator Leilehua Yuen names them together: “O Poliʻahu au / Noho au i ka wao akua…”

These figures belong to living practice, not only to folklore. The water of Waiau “is used in ongoing practices by native healers” and is collected for ceremony and healing, and practitioners still honour the deities today.

Shrines, Quarries and Lake Waiau: a Cultural Landscape

The summit region is dense with archaeological sites. According to the 2010 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the TMT, the roughly 11,215-acre Maunakea Science Reserve holds “263 historic properties, including 141 ancient shrines.” Most of the sites recorded in the archaeological inventory survey were shrines, followed by the complex of adze quarries and workshops. The survey also identified burials or possible burials, most in remote areas, along with markers, memorials and temporary shelters.

Keanakākoʻi, the Mauna Kea adze quarry, was “the largest source of high-quality stone for adze making in all of Polynesia.” It was an industrial site, where workers lived in caves and shelters at high elevation and chipped dense basalt into tools, and a spiritual one, and it is a National Historic Landmark.

Lake Waiau, one of the highest lakes in the United States, was understood as a sacred, almost bottomless portal. A chief would place the piko (umbilical cord) of a firstborn son there to secure the child’s future.

The wao akua, the realm of the gods above the clouds, was traditionally entered only at certain times, by chosen people, for ceremony; the inversion cloud layer acted as a veil. Practice continues today, including solstice and equinox observances (the Mamalahoa chapter of the Royal Order of Kamehameha has marked the equinox on the mountain) and ongoing access for practitioners. Burials of aliʻi (chiefs) and kahuna (priests) are protected where they lie, under a Burial Protection and Inadvertent Discovery Plan developed with Kahu Kū Mauna, the Native Hawaiian advisory council.

Our summit access and driving guide covers the access rules for the summit area, and the Humuʻula Trail guide covers the trail past Keanakākoʻi and Lake Waiau, with its own protocol for hikers.

Hawaiian Astronomy and Wayfinding

The “science versus culture” framing falls apart once you recognise that astronomy and celestial navigation are Hawaiian traditions. The revival of Polynesian voyaging, led by the Polynesian Voyaging Society and master navigator Nainoa Thompson (who learned from the Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug), rests on the Hawaiian star compass. It is a mental model that divides the horizon into 32 “houses” of 11.25° each, grouped into four quadrants and built around the rising and setting points of the stars, Sun and Moon.

The sky is organised into four starlines: Ke Kā o Makaliʻi (“The Canoe-Bailer of Makaliʻi”), Iwikuamoʻo (“The Backbone”, running from Polaris to the Southern Cross), Manaiakalani (“The Chief’s Fishline”, Māui’s fishhook) and Ka Lupe o Kawelo (“The Kite of Kawelo”). The star Hōkūleʻa (Arcturus), Hawaiʻi’s zenith star, gives its name to the famous voyaging canoe, and Makaliʻi (the Pleiades) marks the Makahiki season. Our month-by-month night sky guide shows when these stars are overhead.

As of mid-2026, the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Moananuiākea Voyage, a planned four-year circumnavigation of the Pacific relaunched in May 2025, is still under way but has been extended by a year because of heightened El Niño weather risk. The canoes Hōkūleʻa and Hikianalia have been in Aotearoa since November 2025, and the plan is to stay in the southern hemisphere and continue to Northeast Asia in 2028. Nainoa Thompson described the change: “This is not a delay. It’s not a setback.”

This is why many Native Hawaiians say the conflict was never against science. It is about consent and stewardship: who decides what happens on sacred land, and whether half a century of mismanagement has earned the trust to build more.

How the Telescopes Arrived, and How Consent Was Handled

In 1961 the summit lands were placed in the state Conservation District. In 1968, the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) leased land to the University of Hawaiʻi under General Lease No. S-4191, dated 21 June 1968. The lease covers about 13,320 acres (11,215.554 acres according to the deed) for “a scientific complex, including without limitation an observatory,” for 65 years, from 1 January 1968 to 31 December 2033, at a nominal rent of $1 a year. The first telescope, UH’s 2.2-metre, began operating in 1970, and twelve more followed, for 13 telescopes in all. Two of them were removed in 2024 (see below), and our observatories guide covers the telescopes on the mountain today.

The consent and permitting record is what wore trust away. UH built its 2.2-metre telescope in 1968 without a permit, and the Air Force built a facility the same year without one. Instead of ordering their removal, the BLNR issued “after-the-fact” permits in 1977. State law also let UH sub-lease to some of the world’s wealthiest institutions for the $1-a-year rent plus observing time in place of rent, without fair-market rents being paid into the public land trust.

Four state audits documented the failures. The 1998 audit concluded that “little was done” to protect natural resources after 1968 and that UH had put astronomy development ahead of stewardship. Follow-up audits in 2005, 2014 and 2017 found continuing shortfalls: the 2014 audit found UH had not adopted rules to manage public activities, and the 2017 audit found earlier recommendations still unmet. UH replies that its later comprehensive management plans, and the language of the 2014 audit, show real progress. Both are true: management improved, but only after decades of criticism and litigation.

The Thirty Meter Telescope Conflict

The TMT was proposed in the early 2000s as a next-generation telescope with a mirror of about 30 metres. TMT named Mauna Kea as its preferred site in 2009, and trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) initially adopted a motion supporting the site. UH Hilo applied for a Conservation District Use Permit, and the BLNR approved it in 2011 (formalised in April 2013) before holding a contested case hearing.

In December 2015, in Mauna Kea Anaina Hou v. BLNR, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court vacated the permit on due-process grounds. It held that the board had “put the cart before the horse” by voting before the contested case hearing, denying opponents a meaningful chance to be heard. A new contested case ran from October 2016 to March 2017, with 44 days of testimony from 71 witnesses. The hearing officer, Riki May Amano, recommended approval, the BLNR reissued the permit, and in October 2018 the Supreme Court upheld it.

There were protests in 2015, when blockades halted the groundbreaking and about 31 people were arrested, and they grew far larger in 2019. On 17 July 2019, during a blockade of the Maunakea Access Road led by kūpuna (elders), police arrested elders; the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) cited 33 people for obstruction that day. The state later named everyone arrested over the several days of the action. As Hawaii News Now reported on 24 July 2019, “State officials have released the names of the 38 people who were arrested last week for blocking Mauna Kea Access Road.” Governor David Ige signed an emergency proclamation.

The Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu encampment grew up at the foot of the access road and ran “Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu University”, with classes in law, history, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language), science and more, taught from a Hawaiian perspective. It was a place of learning as much as a blockade. The movement was organised around kapu aloha, disciplined nonviolence and compassion, and kū kiaʻi mauna, standing as protectors of the mountain.

Its leaders and key figures included Pua Case, Kahoʻokahi Kanuha, Lanakila Mangauil, Dr. Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, Kealoha Pisciotta (Mauna Kea Anaina Hou) and Walter Ritte. Scholars including Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua and Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar have documented and analysed the movement. Casumbal-Salazar describes the mountain as “at once, an ancestor, a portal to the Akua, an elder sibling, a primary source of water for the people, and a place of spiritual being.”

The charges ended in the protectors’ favour. In August 2021 a Hilo judge found several kūpuna not guilty. In April 2022 the remaining cases were dismissed after the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court’s State v. Thompson ruling on complaint procedure. And on 10 January 2023, State Attorney General Anne Lopez announced that the state would not re-prosecute, saying that continuing was “not in the best interests of the people of the State of Hawaiʻi.” Governor Josh Green welcomed the decision: “the time has come to build a new pathway forward that considers all people and is respectful of our host culture.”

Native Hawaiians who supported the TMT. This group exists and is often left out of the story. Supporters, including some Native Hawaiian residents, workers and science teachers, and organised groups such as IMUA TMT and PUEO (Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities), pointed to jobs and education. TMT set up the THINK Fund (The Hawaiʻi Island New Knowledge Fund) in 2014 with a commitment of $1 million a year, administered by the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation and the Pauahi Foundation, the latter giving preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry. TMT reports having funded roughly $5.5 million for Hawaiʻi Island students, teachers and families. Supporters also argued that its sublease rent (rising to more than $1 million a year) and its Native Hawaiian consultation through Kahu Kū Mauna were a better model than the past. Critics reply that science funding does not answer the underlying questions of consent and desecration.

Where the TMT Stands in 2026

The TMT’s future is genuinely undecided. In its fiscal year 2026 budget request, the National Science Foundation, facing what Science/AAAS described as “a previously proposed 56% cut in the $9 billion budget of the National Science Foundation,” said it could not fund two “extremely large telescopes.” It would advance the Giant Magellan Telescope, under construction in Chile, into final design, while “The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will not advance to the Final Design Phase and will not receive additional commitment of funds from NSF.” The US Extremely Large Telescope External Evaluation Panel had earlier concluded that site access was “an existential threat” to TMT, and that the La Palma alternative reduced that risk “only insufficiently.”

In 2025 and 2026, Spain and the European Investment Bank (EIB) put together financing to move the TMT to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands. On 11 November 2025, the TMT International Observatory (TIO) announced that it was officially considering the move. On 29 July 2026, Spain’s science minister Diana Morant and the EIB presented a €1 billion (about $1.14 billion) package: €400 million from the Ministry of Science through the CDTI, a €300 million EIB loan and up to €300 million from Spain’s Official Credit Institute (ICO). It is conditional on TIO choosing the Roque de los Muchachos site, and the final decision rests with the international consortium. The EIB’s project register gives a total TMT cost of €3.015 billion (about $3.43 billion), up from an initial estimate of about $1.4 billion. Separately, a 2026 congressional appropriations bill told the NSF to take both projects to final design review without providing new construction money, which keeps TMT technically “alive — for now.”

So the project is neither formally cancelled nor confirmed for either site. It has lost its US federal funding path on Mauna Kea, holds an active offer to relocate to Spain, and keeps a narrow lifeline in Congress. The Protect Mauna Kea movement has tentatively supported relocation, while TMT and some local officials, including Hawaiʻi County Mayor Kimo Alameda, have said they are not giving up on Mauna Kea.

Who Looks After the Mountain Now: Act 255 and the New Authority

Act 255 (2022) created the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority (MKSOA), set out in HRS §195H, “to protect Mauna Kea for future generations… fostering a mutual stewardship paradigm in which ecology, the environment, natural resources, cultural practices, education, and science are in balance and synergy.” It was a direct response to the 2019 protests and to the legislature’s Mauna Kea Working Group.

The authority has 11 voting members, including seats for cultural practitioners and the community and representatives of the BLNR, the UH Board of Regents and the Hawaiʻi County mayor. Governor Ige appointed two leaders of the 2019 protests, Lanakila Mangauil and Dr. Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, to it. The Act also reserves a seat for a representative of the telescopes, which OHA challenged as a conflict of interest. A transition began on 1 July 2023, during which UH and the MKSOA manage the lands jointly. It was planned to last five years, but Act 53, signed in May 2026, moved the handover to 1 December 2029; the MKSOA must still adopt a management plan by 30 June 2028, or management reverts to UH. The master lease expires on 31 December 2033.

The OHA lawsuit. On 17 January 2024, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs filed a suit in Circuit Court challenging whether Act 255 is constitutional. OHA argued that the Act improperly releases the state from its trust obligations, cancels existing lease terms (a contract-clause violation), builds in a conflict of interest for the telescope industry and is “silent about the rights of Native Hawaiians to protect the cultural and religious importance of Mauna Kea.” It sought repeal. OHA’s position in the litigation shifted in 2025; see the notes at the end of this page.

Telescopes coming down. Act 255 required telescopes to be removed, and UH committed to removing two before the MKSOA takes over. The decommissioning of the Hōkū Keʻa observatory was completed in May 2024, the first observatory removed in full, and the removal of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory and restoration of its site were completed in July 2024, with three years of monitoring to follow. These are the first removals under the state’s 2010 Decommissioning Plan. A third, UKIRT, ended its science operations on 15 September 2026, and its removal is due to be finished by 2030.

What visitors and tour companies can expect. New administrative rules, possible limits on commercial and astronomy activity, and a style of management centred on Hawaiian values are all expected. Access procedures, commercial tour permits and the rules for using the summit may tighten as the MKSOA adopts its plan, so expect requirements to keep changing until 2028.

How to Visit Respectfully

• Understand kapu aloha. It means more than “be nice”: it is a discipline of compassion and nonviolence, a state of love and restraint that governs how you behave in a sacred place. Bring that attitude with you.
• Do not build rock stacks, and never move stones. On Mauna Kea, rock features that look natural may be shrines, markers or altars, and they are protected by law. Tourist cairns do real harm here: they imitate cultural features and can be mistaken for them, and moving stones disturbs a sacred landscape. Leave the mountain as you found it.
• Stay on the roads and trails. That protects both the cultural sites and the fragile alpine ecosystem, including the endangered wēkiu bug.
• Do not climb Puʻuwēkiu, the true summit cone. The highest point is a sacred puʻu (hill), and standing on it is considered disrespectful. Admire it from the designated area.
• Do not enter or disturb Lake Waiau, its shore or its water.
• Give way to practitioners. If you come across people in ceremony, do not approach, photograph, join or interrupt them. Give them space and quiet.
• Photograph landscapes, not ceremonies. Never photograph shrines or offerings as curiosities.
• Ask yourself whether to go at all. Some Kānaka Maoli would rather the summit were not a tourist destination. You can honour that by staying at the Visitor Information Station elevation, around 9,200 ft, by learning first at ʻImiloa, or by experiencing the mountain from below; our Visitor Information Station guide and the guide to stargazing beyond the summit cover the options. If you do go higher, go informed, humble and briefly.
• Choose your guide carefully. Look for Hawaiian-led or Hawaiian-partnered operators who teach the cultural context, follow kapu aloha, hold the proper permits and do not treat sacred practice as a photo opportunity. On GetYourGuide, the Mauna Kea Hike & Stargazing with a Native Hawaiian Guide ($150, 4.9 stars from 41 reviews) is run by Kalaninuimehameha, with a Native Hawaiian guide, and stays below the summit, at 9,394 ft on the Humuʻula Trail. Our operator comparison covers the companies permitted to take guests to the top.

Hawaiian Cultural Tours and Places to Learn on the Big Island

• ʻImiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, part of UH Hilo, is the essential first stop. It brings Hawaiian culture, language and wayfinding together with astronomy, with bilingual exhibits, a planetarium (including the show “Maunakea: Between Earth and Sky”) and native gardens. Executive director Kaʻiu Kimura describes its role as a bridge between the observatories and the community.
• Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park in South Kona is a place of refuge (puʻuhonua) preserved by the NPS, with the Hale o Keawe temple, the royal grounds and the Great Wall. It is a powerful place to understand kapu and sanctuary. Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site and Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park are also on the island.
• Native Hawaiian-led experiences. Malahini Tours, a Native Hawaiian woman-owned Hilo company founded in 2018 that runs culturally grounded small-group tours, is the clearest example we could verify. Treat general “authentic” or “locally owned” marketing with caution and check who owns the business. Programmes such as INPEACE’s “Kaulele” (science education built on Indigenous knowledge) and the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority’s Kūkulu Ola grantees also support genuine cultural learning.
• Documentaries. Standing Above the Clouds (2024, directed by Jalena Keane-Lee) follows Native Hawaiian mother-and-daughter kiaʻi including Pua Case, Hāwane Rios and Kapulei Flores, and won the Bill Nemtin Award for Best Social Impact Documentary at Hot Docs 2024. Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege (2005, by Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina, Joan Lander and Puhipau) was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2020. Like a Mighty Wave (2019, directed by Mikey Inouye) covers the 2019 stand.
• Reading and organisations. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and its newspaper Ka Wai Ola, KAHEA, the Polynesian Voyaging Society, the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation, and the writing of Native Hawaiian scholars including Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua and Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar.

Genuine cultural experiences put Hawaiian voices at the centre, teach history and protocol, and give back to the community; a commercial lūʻau show is a different thing. On Maui, Haleakalā raises many of the same questions, which our comparison of Mauna Kea and Haleakalā touches on.

A Short Glossary

• Maunakea or Mauna Kea. The UH Hilo College of Hawaiian Language (Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani) recommends the one-word “Maunakea” as correct Hawaiian usage. It is a proper noun, the name of this mountain, found in 19th-century Hawaiian-language newspapers, whereas “mauna kea” in two words is a common noun for any “white mountain.” The one-word form is more than five times as common in Hawaiian-language writing. This site uses the two-word spelling most visitors search for, and “Maunakea” where an organisation uses it in its own name.
• Mauna a Wākea: “the Mountain of Wākea”, the sacred name that stresses the genealogy.
• Kānaka Maoli / Kānaka ʻŌiwi: Native Hawaiian people.
• Kiaʻi: guardians or protectors, the movement’s own word for itself in place of “protesters.”
• Kapu aloha: a code of disciplined, compassionate nonviolence.
• Wahi pana: a storied, sacred, legendary place.
• Piko: navel or umbilical cord; a point of connection between generations and between earth and sky.
• Ahu: an altar or shrine, often a stone cairn built for ceremony. Lele: a raised offering platform or altar.
• Kūpuna: elders and ancestors.
• Aloha ʻāina: love of the land, a deep ethic of reciprocal care and, historically, patriotism.
• The ʻokina (ʻ) is a consonant, a glottal stop, and the kahakō (macron) marks a long vowel. Both change meaning and pronunciation, so using them correctly is a sign of respect; leaving one out or misplacing it can turn a word into a different one.

If You Are Deciding Whether, and How, to Go

1. Learn before you go. Start at ʻImiloa in Hilo and with Native Hawaiian sources: OHA and Ka Wai Ola, the Polynesian Voyaging Society and the documentaries above. It costs little, shows respect and makes any later visit better.
2. If you go up the mountain, follow the visitor protocol above without exception. Above all: stay on the roads and trails, build and move nothing, keep off Puʻuwēkiu and away from Lake Waiau, and give way to practitioners. Acclimatise and follow the altitude and safety guidance in the summit access guide and the Humuʻula Trail guide.
3. Check your operator. Ask directly whether the company is Hawaiian-owned or Hawaiian-partnered, how it teaches cultural context, whether it observes kapu aloha and whether it holds the required permits. Choose one that does, and walk away from any that treats sacred practice as a spectacle.
4. Hold both truths. You can respect the astronomers’ science and the Kānaka Maoli position that consent and stewardship come first. Humility is the honest position here; a rush to “both sides” neutrality erases the harm done by past mismanagement.

What would change this guidance. A formal TIO decision to build on La Palma, which would largely end the conflict on the mountain; the MKSOA adopting new administrative rules and a management plan before July 2028, which will change access and commercial tour requirements; the outcome of the OHA lawsuit; and any return of federal funding or a construction “notice to proceed” on Mauna Kea, which would reopen the conflict. Check the current MKSOA rules and your operator’s permits before you book.

Notes on Sources and What Is Still Changing

• Arrest figures differ. Same-day coverage in 2019 reported 33 kūpuna cited by DLNR for obstruction; the state later named 38 people arrested over the whole multi-day action (Hawaii News Now, 24 July 2019), and some films give 36. The difference comes from who, and which days, are counted.
• The TMT story is moving fast. As of mid-2026 the project has no NSF funding for Mauna Kea, has a €1 billion (about $1.14 billion) Spanish and EIB offer to relocate to La Palma, announced on 29 July 2026 (TIO said it was considering the move on 11 November 2025), and keeps a lifeline in Congress. It is neither formally cancelled nor confirmed for either site, so check the latest news before relying on any single status.
• The MKSOA transition and the OHA lawsuit are unresolved. The transition now runs to 1 December 2029 after the 2026 extension, with the management plan due by 30 June 2028, and several details, such as how the MKSOA and DLNR will share conservation-district permitting, are not yet settled. OHA’s January 2024 constitutional challenge was pending; reports indicate that in mid-2025 OHA moved to withdraw related Mauna Kea litigation as part of a shift towards stewardship and partnership. Check its current status.
• The final decision on the criminal charges came from the state. The 2019 arrests were prosecuted at state level, and the definitive decision not to prosecute was announced by State Attorney General Anne Lopez on 10 January 2023. Earlier county-level dismissals, in 2015 by then-Prosecutor Mitch Roth, concern a separate, earlier round of arrests. We found nothing to support claims of a 2025 Hawaiʻi County prosecutor’s announcement on the 2019 cases.
• Decommissioning has only begun. Two telescopes, Hōkū Keʻa and the CSO, were removed in 2024, and UKIRT stopped observing in September 2026 ahead of its removal; further removals depend on the MKSOA’s coming plan.
• The “$1 a year” rent and the “263 sites”. Both are well documented, but they need their context. The $1-a-year rent and the 21 June 1968 lease date are confirmed in state documents. The 263 sites and 141 shrines come from the 2010 TMT Final EIS and the archaeological inventory survey, and refer specifically to the Science Reserve.
• Sacred knowledge is not all public. Some traditions, sites and practices are deliberately not shared with outsiders. This page draws on published Native Hawaiian and institutional sources and does not try to reveal restricted knowledge.
• Operator claims need checking. “Authentic” and “locally owned” are marketing words, so confirm Native Hawaiian ownership or partnership independently. The GetYourGuide rating and price above were taken from our tour data in September 2026 and change over time.
• Sources differ on how well the mountain has been managed. OHA and the kiaʻi stress more than 50 years of mismanagement; UH stresses the improvements made since 2000. We have set out both, and readers can weigh them for themselves.

This page is the cultural guide for the cluster. For the mountain’s geology, the observatories and what you can visit, the road and access rules, and the evening itself, see the volcano guide, the observatories guide, the summit access guide and the complete guide to Mauna Kea stargazing tours.