 Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters, and we're talking to Russell, Russell Hanwa, who comes in and reports on events that affect the state of Hawaii, sometimes internationally, in this case, locally. So while we have coronavirus, while we have the decline of our democracy in Washington, while we have climate change, we also have monocaya. And Russell's here to discuss that. He's been involved with monocaya for a long time. And he's been part of a group that has tried to resolve the problem. Russell, welcome to the show. Yeah. Oh, thank you, Jay, for inviting me today. I noticed a very important subject as well with the monocaya mountain being the sacred mountain as well with the TMT telescope, which is 1.4 billion dollars known as the world's largest telescope. And as you know, there has been a lot of protests, and it took like 10 years for the TMT partners to come up with a viable building permit what the Supreme Court has gave them a green light to approve. So they have all the building construction plans to proceed. But however, last year in July, when they were going to have the construction crew going up to the access road to monocaya, there was a protest with native Hawaiians and they blocked the road. And roughly there was like 2000 native Hawaiians over there. Protesting the secret mountain so they couldn't have the access to go into the road. So from that, you know, we're on this deadbolt right now on the limbo stage with the monocaya mountain and the TMT telescope project. So I have some few plans that I've been working on. In the past, we had our official from UNESCO come over here. UNESCO is the United Nations. You had somebody from the United Nations come out here on monocaya? Yes, we had the United Nations. Matter of fact, Arina Bokova, who was the executive secretary general for UNESCO, she came here about three years ago when we hosted an international conservation for climate change conference. And she gave a presentation. I was able to have sit down and talk to her. And I mentioned about monocaya mountain and TMT telescope can be registered and listed as a UNESCO's World Culture Heritage site where the native Hawaiians have studied from the past president to the future. So what happened was about a month after that, the UNESCO officials came and evaluated, wanted to conduct a meeting. So I set up a meeting with Monocaya, with the Pisces of Pacific International Space Exploration System. And we were going over some of the issues that can affect the monocaya mountain as well with the TMT and the space program that we're trying to push there. So what happened was they did evaluate it and they came up with a vital, preliminary report saying that they can classify monocaya as windows of the universe where the native Hawaiians have studied the glacial stars from the past, present and the future. As you know, monocaya mountain was a white cat mountain. It was a beacon of light. They used that as a guidelines for like a... Well, let me get it straight. Windows on the universe is really an astronomy of sorts when you're looking at the stars. You also mentioned that the effort, at least as seen by UNESCO, was that, or at least by somebody, was that it would be part of the space program. Both of those are like scientific things. Is there room? Is there room for either of those, either the space program or looking at the stars on the top of a sacred mountain, on the top of the mountain that has so much controversy about astronomy and the telescope? Oh, yes. We have our presence there with the Pacific International Space Exploration System as a division under the DBED, Department of Economic Development and Tourism, which we're pushing for the space industry with aerospace. And that was initiated, I would say, five or six years ago that... So they've been doing a lot of these work projects relating to the Mars mission, with the rover robotics, getting out of major universities, internationally... Well, don't the native Hawaiians object to that? I mean, they're objecting to astronomy as a violation of the sacred characteristic of the mountain. Wouldn't they object to other science as well? This didn't happen before when we were pushing for the Pisces program. What about now? With the Mauna Kea, I guess right now they're more focused on the Hawaiian protesters are focused on the TMT telescope project. And they haven't mentioned anything about the Pisces because we do have our... The UUH has a laboratory, like a six-month incubator, so that it kind of meets the requirement for testing the grounds for how the human conditions might apply in space, like if you have a lunar moon-based cap there, or even a Mars mission when you're in the terrain of the Mars. So going back to the United Nations for a moment, Russell, so the UNESCO was interested in designating Mauna Kea as a window on the universe. Is that a cultural thing or is that a scientific thing? And if it's not a cultural thing, how do the native Hawaiians, how do they feel about it? It is a cultural thing as well with the scientific reasons that UNESCO exists. And they're into preserving the cultural heritage and move on with the other means. In this case, in Hawaii, we can move on with astronomy because they've been studying and glazing the stars for our answers. The Hawaiian answers have been there in the past. So when you say a window on the universe, is that the designation for the cultural characterization or is there another term that UNESCO is looking at to characterize Mauna Kea as a sacred mountain culturally? Well, I did get a preliminary report and it then mentioned that there's a window of the universe that they want to apply with native Hawaiians looking at the stars and glazing it from the past, present, and future. Which is a good sign. I think what we want to do is that we want the native Hawaiians who are protesting to realize what the future is and see if we can coexist and work together for the future from the past, present, and future. And we do respect the Hawaiian culture and their existence and what they have done in the past. Who's we, Russell? You're in an organization that is involved in trying to determine a solution to develop state policy on this. What is that organization and how does it relate to the task force, which is ostensibly going to be created by the 2020 state legislature? Yeah, there is a task force that the state is pushing right now. I know there's a house and concurrent resolution that both the house and the Senate agreed to issue, which is asking the governor, EGATE, to come up with the blue ribbon commission to study the native Hawaiians involvement in the past, present, and future of their existence. So I think this might come in hand to hand and they might be want to focus in that with the Mauna Kea mountain situation right now, because as you know, Mayor Harry Kim of Big Island had a moratorium, which he told the elders at the Mauna Kea summit that they can open up the access road to go up. So in other words, they don't have to block the roads and this two month moratorium was signed, was a verbal agreement with the native Hawaiians, with the Mayor Harry Kim, which was on December 26. So in other words, in February, end of this month, the two month moratorium and stopping the construction is going to be over. So now they might be entitled to move the construction people to go up there, the tractors and all the equipment to facilitate the TMT construction going on. So the task force, who's on the task force and what is the task force doing in order to avoid a confrontation on and after February 26? I'm not exactly sure who's going to be on the task force, but I'm just assuming probably most likely be the Hawaiian leaders, hopefully with the UH. So they haven't decided who's going to be on the task force yet because this is a resolution that they just came out and there's going to have to be a public hearing on that. Oh, but is there a group though? Is there a group trying to meet a group that would, you know, try to make some kind of resolution of this at least temporarily to take place after February 26? Yeah, I think so. When I talked to some of the people at the Hawaii County, the planning department research under the Hawaii County, they've been working on some of these, you know, working out with the natives there because it is a big island, Hawaii County issue. And I know the governor wants to work with Mayor Harry Kim and make sure he can push forward to move on. So hopefully with the Hawaiian leaders, and I brought this up because I did get a recognition memorandum from UNESCO officials saying that they realized the situation there about three weeks ago. And I did send that memorandum to Governor, former Governor John Wahey and Dante Carpenter, who was a mayor of Big Island. He's a native Hawaiian there. And William Ila, he's one of the Hawaiian leaders. So they can all come up with some kind of ramification, some kind of measure to mitigate this and see if we can move forward. They've been meeting now, yeah. Yes. So you had a letter that you wanted to show that representing the status of the matter. Can we see that letter and you can talk about it? Yeah, I guess that letter that the mayor wrote to the monarchy regarding the monarchy access road to the leaders over there. The Hawaiian leader is saying that, you know, the TMT got opened the saddle road. So in terms of public safety, so this was dated what December 23, 2019. And I know there's a management plan. The monarchy management plan came after that. So I know I did. You might want to show that on the screen too. Yeah. Okay. So this is a 30 meter telescope management plan. And what can you, William, why don't you describe what that provides? I think it usually has, it's like an 80 page, 85 page. It talks mostly like, you know, the renter agreement, like they got to pay like $30,000 a rent to the monarchy. Did you say 30 with 300,000? Yeah, 300,000. And lastly, the lease of the pay of $1.8 million should go into the native Hawaiian culture needs for 10 years. Another additional STEM education for TMT international think tank, they got to pay about $1 million to educate the native Hawaiian who are interested in going to the astronomy field. And also that this is a big thing that UH is considered having a Hale Hohaku, a visitor center to honor to celebrate the Hawaiian history, language and culture along the modern science and astronomy. So in other words, they're going to have a cultural center in there at the facility at the site at the TMT or Mauna Kea so native Hawaiians can still practice or culture heritage rituals that they have. And I wonder how you can do that. This is a 12,000 feet. And that means everybody has to take a car up to the top of the mountain. I can see practical problems involved with that. I mean, there are, for example, there are medical problems. You can have, you know, pulmonary edema at that at that altitude. I'm not going to handle that. It's not like every Tom, Dick and Harry can take the trip up to the top. Right, right. I guess they got to justify the ideal location. It might be on the summit below the summit where the access road might be, where they're processing right now. So who wrote this? Is this from the university? I think it was a joint effort with the university as well with the state and the Hawaii County and they came up with this management plan. So what I got here is you tell me if I'm missing something. One is they get to pay, somebody gets to pay. I'm not sure if that's the state, you know, out of the general fund or something else. You get to pay the native Hawaiian people who are objecting. And then there's also this cultural center somewhere. And oh, and there was more money too. There was over a million dollars in something else that you mentioned. And so I guess my question there is, you know, who pays it and who gets it? It's not Oha, I guess. And I don't know of any other native Hawaiian organization that that you could say is a legal organization with a, you know, a sort of a legal entity that could actually receive that kind of money. Where does that go that money? I think it's initially it started with the TMT partners, you know, there's a general money, general fund in there. And I'm sure some of the money is going to be allocated from there to put a relationship between the U.S. I mean with the Hawaiian natives there with the Hawaiian community. So basically, the community, the native Hawaiians got to form this entity a group, and they can benefit some even from Turr guys too. I think they're going to they're talking about having a native Hawaiian Turr guy Turr going up to Mauna Kea. And maybe they might have restaurants up in the summit there, which the native Hawaiians can operate it since it's under the seeded land concept. So, you know, those things, you know, they got to still got to come up with some kind of Bible plan that the native Hawaiians got to realize that one voice of concern. And I don't know Oha's going to play that role. Or the Royal Order coming up or it could be just they might form a new entity there, or if they're going to have the Mauna Kea Observatory Group manage that or the UH going to manage it. Or, you know, they still got to form a Bible entity for that move on. Yeah. So how far along are we on this? I guess the university has written it up. It's 80 pages long. We've seen the cover sheet and the summary and the table of contents. But has the native Hawaiian community seen that? Have the leaders of the of the Mauna Kea protests, have they seen it? Have they agreed to it? Has there been a vote among those who consider themselves constituents? Where are we? I believe what I heard from the is that the attorneys from the opposition group of the Hawaiian protesters, they kind of saw it and they reject the leaders kind of reject and they still want to not have the TMT construction go in there. So, you know, that kind of stands right now. But I don't know now with the movement. That's what I brought this issue about having it registered on the UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage Site. Maybe with that, plus all those benefits they're going to get, they can realize that all that protest the native Hawaiians did was an in vain that they can proceed. It did work for their recognition and they got their respect and they can move on now and go from there. In the mechanical sense, you know, have the attorneys for the protest group, have they responded, you know, to the provisions of this 80 page document, which can't be more than a few weeks old, maybe less. Have they responded and said, this part we agree, this part we don't agree, you know, you haven't satisfied us on this thing, which I have satisfied us on that. Has that happened? Is there, what do you call it, an engagement between the two sides of this? Or, and I take it there's a substantial possibility that the Native Hawaiian group says, no, no, we don't want to tell, you don't understand, we don't want TMT there at all. There's nothing you can do in money or cultural development that will change our mind. We don't want it there, period. Because I hear that from what you're saying. So which ways are going? I think if you look at the, from the rule of law side, because we know the Native Hawaiian issue is very sensitive and we've been given so much leniency. Even our governor Yige has given that leniency. They don't want to arrest them. They want to give them some pulling off period. And the Supreme Court, Hawaii Supreme Court has approved and said that longest the Manakea partners come up with a vital construction permit to develop the TMT they can proceed. And they already had come up with the Bible construction plan. That was some time ago. Yes, that was like six months ago. So that's when they started the protest back then. And they had all these celebrities come up there like Johnson, Dwayne Johnson of the Rock, and they had Jason Moa from Aquamander and you know all these other movements from I remember. And that was a movement of the rising of the Aina and Imoa, Manakea Imoa with the triangle movement and they're basically now, you know, island wide or statewide. There's a movement with the Native Hawaiian, especially for the young people. But you talk about rule of law, you know, we have, I think the country has some problems about rule of law. We don't seem to accept rule of law. In this case, the TMT developers, the consortium put in like almost 15 years of effort to go through every dot every I and cross every T to get their permit. And there were, you know, a couple of Supreme Court cases about it and they finally finally got their permit. But even after they got their permit and even after they tried to start construction here, the Native Hawaiian community still opposed it, ignoring the rule of law, ignoring the permit. On the basis of their cultural argument, which they had made in the course of that litigation, which they failed at in that litigation. But they didn't care about the litigation. They didn't care about what the Supreme Court said. They just want to stop the telescope. And so my question to you is, you know, who is doing the rule of law now when we are talking about documents that are there being exchanged calling for millions of dollars to be paid to achieve the rule of law, even when the rule of law should be achievable and enforceable right now without paying a penny. After all, the consortium has paid millions in order to get to where we are. So why should I have to pay why should they have to pay millions of dollars to enforce the rule of law when they already have the rule of law, you know, to allow the telescope to proceed. And who is in charge here anyway. Got a good point, Jay. That's what we're having this discussion here today. And hopefully we can come up with a message that we can send. And hopefully that the leaders can decide what to do. I know in terms of rule of law is pretty much black and white and in Hawaii's case, we're showing a lot of leniency because we're sensitive people here. We understand what the native Hawaiian went through and what their culture that since the overthrow of monarchy, and they were really treated really badly, like second citizens. So, you know, those kind of things are coming up and now the native Hawaiians are more educated, and they realize what their ancestors went through. So this is like their former protests and they want to show that there's a unity among the native Hawaiians in Hawaii. I certainly agree that there's a, you know, a threat of sovereignty and historical protest back from the overthrow in all of this. And the question I asked you before we began the show, I think is still dwells on my mind. Let's assume that somehow this agreement is negotiated to the satisfaction of the native Hawaiian community and somehow there's enough money being paid enough cultural, you know, development being undertaken by TMTO by the state or a combination, maybe the county also. That will satisfy them on the TMT. But that doesn't solve the concern of the native Hawaiian community about the overthrow, about sovereignty, about, you know, their argument that the land was taken from them. So if we do that, if we pay that price, I say we, I mean the state and TMT, if we pay that price, what assurance is there that we won't have exactly the same kind of protest again later, the day after, either on wind turbines here or there, Any development, you know, project anywhere in the state, Sherwood Forest, for example. So what assurance is there that we won't have this same kind of experience resulting in, you know, additional costs to somebody over and over again. Boy, I'm glad you brought that up, Jay. You know, it's a very sensitive feature being a local or not being a local. And that's a local issue. And I see it with the happening in the past January. January is a color hobby. When Bumpy Kaleheli, Melanie Trash was protesting, and maybe with the young generation now, this is the mean of their protest. And what you see. And that's kind of stuff I kind of oversee is like, it might happen again in the next generation after this, you know, but we just got to make things Pono right now. The next generation can realize and they can make a better decision to move on what's good for the state of Hawaii as a whole. Yeah, okay, hope so. I hope the Kula heads will prevail. But let me ask you, you know, from a, you know, an expectancy point of view, a prediction point of view. We are we're pretty close to February 26 that two months has effectively gone by. Somebody took the trouble to write and conceive of, you know, a huge deal, a huge deal and money anyway, to the native Hawaiian community to get their buy in on the TMT. But as you said, they haven't really agreed to that and they may not agree to that because they don't want it there. And so we're going to come up to the my my guess is we're going to come up to February 26 without a resolution of this matter. Period. Lots of argument but no resolution. What will happen after that. Can you give me your expectation your prediction. I think my prediction is maybe nothing might not happen just just move on and see what happens with the House and the Senate's concurrent resolution that they're pushing for the between the native Hawaiian past president future and see if they can mitigate send some kind of message. But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to not reinvent the wheel, but I just want to come up with a Bible solution, a Pono. That's what I brought this about the UNESCO's cultural heritage that we've been working on it for the past four or five years and making monocle mountain in conjunction with TMT telescope as a world cultural heritage site. But there's a catch 22 to this. I know that there's a provision in the UNESCO saying that if it does get world cultural heritage, they won't be in the future construction. Also, at least you get some kind of waiver. But so in other words, we want the TMT to proceed first, then we can apply for the monocle as a UNESCO's world. Yeah, so they get that right. So if you have the UNESCO designation. In exchange for that UNESCO wants to have control over any future construction right. So they got to work with the entity the Hawaii monocle observatory committee and the TMT international partners and see if they can come up with a provision in there to maybe have an expansion for other means as well and go from there. Okay Russell we're almost out of time I want to thank you for coming on to discuss this and for your efforts behind the scenes and trying to resolve it and get people to come together. Whatever your age is whatever my age is. I think we're going to get much older, the two of us before this is resolved. And I hope you can keep coming on. And we can catch it, you know, and update our update our view of it going forward. Thank you so much Russell. It's nice to see you again we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you Jay and thank you very much I'll see you around again.