The native Hawaiians had their culture actively supressed until 2 generations ago... some today had grandparents that were punished for speaking the language- That was a terrible injustice... as was the original conquest of the native Hawaiians.

In the past few decades there has been a growing movement to reconnect with their native culture... understandable... but predictably some have become radicalized and have become irrational...

The summit is an example of 'beautiful desolation' It honestly looks like a mars landscape....(yeah I know, like I have been to Mars enough to draw the comparison - lol)

The observatories try to minimize the footprint they leave on the summit and are very sensitive to desecration of the environment, (let me give an example- one day I was out sightseeing with a small pair of binoculars and I noticed a tire laying on a plateau several hundred feet, maybe a thousand, below the observatories, to the naked eye it was just a speck, but it just seemed so wrong... It was probably rolled down by a tourist for 'fun'... I mentioned it to our head of summit operations and it went up the line- the tire is now gone... )

Here is the view from the UNPAVED Keck parking lot of the major scopes on the summit:

From left to right The first is IRTF, THEN CFHT, Then Gemini, and then 2 U. Hawaii scopes...

and here is Subaru:

and JCMT and SMA:

that is all the telescopes on the summit... I guess 'desecration' is in the eye of the beholder.... but it isnt the 'industrial wasteland' portrayed by some...

The fact is there is NO decision that will make everyone happy....