A bill will be introduced in the state Legislature today officially formalizing a 2021 proposal to develop a new state agency to manage Maunakea.
House Bill 2024 would, if passed, establish the Maunakea Stewardship Authority as the sole authority for management of lands on the mauna that currently are managed by the University of Hawaii and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
According to the bill, the stewardship authority would consist of nine voting members, seven of whom would be appointed by the governor, with the remaining two being the chair of the DLNR and the CEO of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
The seven gubernatorial appointees would be a member with “aina resource management experience,” a member with educational expertise, an individual with business and finance experience, a Native Hawaiian who is a lineal descendant of a Hawaiian cultural practitioner on the mauna, a Native Hawaiian who is a recognized cultural practitioner, and a Native Hawaiian with expertise in Hawaiian traditional and customary practices.
While only three of those positions expressly specify that Native Hawaiians must hold those posts, the measure stipulates that four of the gubernatorial appointees be Native Hawaiian Big Island residents, with a preference for all seven appointees to fit that description.
After the formation of the group, members would develop a management plan dictating the land uses for the mountain that would, among other things, be updated every decade, incorporate indigenous and cultural values, and “include an aspirational statement to acknowledge and contextualize unresolved social justice issues that underpin Maunakea.”
The bill is the final product of the Maunakea Working Group, which was established during the 2021 legislative session to discuss alternate management structures for the mountain. The group released its final report Tuesday.
That final report makes management policy recommendations that are reflected in the bill, including a prohibition of commercial activities on Maunakea outside of designated permissible areas, imposing user fees and applications for recreational activities on the mountain, requiring orientation and cultural training for all those accessing the mountain, and for all observatories on the mountain to plan for and finance their eventual decommissioning as a condition for any lease on the summit.
Hilo Rep. Mark Nakashima, who was the chair of that working group and a co-introducer of HB 2024, said the bill provides for a three-year period to transfer management from UH to the stewardship authority.
Although the bill does not specify the stewardship authority’s annual budget, Nakashima said he believes it could be a little more than $4 million.
The university’s current lease of the Maunakea Science Reserve lands, which is currently set to expire in 2033, would be terminated, Nakashima said.
“I don’t think it would be as simple as that, and it would take some doing,” Nakashima said. “But I think it would be possible.”
Under the stewardship authority, Nakashima said the current telescope facilities would have the opportunity to extend their leases beyond 2033, although the bill states the agency would develop a framework to limit astronomy development on the mountain and establish a plan to return it to its natural state above the 9,200-foot elevation.
A UH spokesman declined to comment on the bill in lieu of submitting testimony regarding the measure. However, a UH statement responding to the working group’s final report was critical of its findings, pointing out that they are in many ways redundant to UH’s newly updated Maunakea Master Plan, and raise a number of legal and financial concerns.
Some of those concerns included the constitutionality of a government entity with race-based membership controlling state resources, the myriad of recreational activities held on the mauna that would have to be managed, and the consolidation of lands currently under the jurisdiction of different agencies operating under different rules to a single agency.
Finally, the UH statement rejects the premise of the working group that the university is widely criticized for mismanagement of the mountain.
“The university believes that the criticism of ‘mismanagement’ often levied against UH, and seemingly the basis for the report, is now inaccurate and derives from the accusations of those who oppose the state policies in support of astronomy on Maunakea rather than the actual practices of the university,” the statement read.
Native Hawaiian activist Kealoha Pisciotta told the Tribune-Herald she is skeptical the bill will actually lead to any material management changes on the mountain.
She said that the 2019 protests on Maunakea were against the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope project and any future development of the mauna, neither of which are precluded by the bill.
“Management has always been a problem, but it isn’t the biggest problem,” Pisciotta said. “They’re trying to promote the idea that change will occur, but it just puts us back in the status quo. Instead of the land managed by UH, which is a lessee of the state, it puts the whole thing on the state. … It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a pretend act. It’s not a real act.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.