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Over the last 20 years, members of Indigenous groups have stated that astronomers do not have consent to build on mountains that are sacred to these groups. Astronomers, in turn, have claimed that they do have permission to build telescopes there. I would like to use UN documents on Indigenous rights as a framework to discuss what it means for telescope projects to obtain consent for construction. 

 

Before the meeting, please read over the following 3 documents:

1. Free, Prior and Informed Consent Manual from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

(pages 12-30)

While this manual is primarily designed for agricultural and medical programs, they offer a clear outline of “free, prior, and informed consent” that I would like to use as a framework for our discussion. Section 1 (pp. 12-18) covers the definition of consent, and Section 2 (pp. 19-30) provides an example process for requesting consent. 

 

2. Kahanamoku et al. (2020) A Native Hawaiian-led summary of the current impact of constructing the Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea

Kahanamoku is a Native Hawaiian ecologist. The authors reference the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to support the right of Native Hawaiians to control what happens on Maunakea, and discuss why they believe there is no clear consent for construction on Maunakea. 

 

3. Nelson & Lawler (2019) Canadian Astronomy on Maunakea: On Respecting Indigenous Rights

Nelson is a Mi'kmaq astronomer in Canada, and this white paper was written for the Canadian version of the decadal survey. The authors reference a number of articles from UNDRIP that are directly relevant to telescope construction on sacred land. 

 

Other relevant documents:

Swanner et al. (2012) Mountains of Controversy: Narrative and the Making of Contested Landscapes in Postwar American Astronomy

“This dissertation examines the histories of conflict between Native, environmentalist, and astronomy communities over telescope construction at Kitt Peak, Mauna Kea, and Mt. Graham from the mid-1970s to [2012].” In particular, Swanner discusses why Indigenous groups at each site may have chosen to accept or oppose telescope construction over the last 60 years. Note that the sections on Maunakea only include the beginnings of the TMT controversy.

 

Kahanamoku et al. (2020) is one of eight documents regarding Maunakea that were published by a Native Hawaiian-led group of authors, which can all be found here:

 

 

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) webpage, which includes links to PDF and html versions of the declaration. There are 46 articles in the Declaration; Nelson & Lawler (2019) break down a subset of these, but you can also read the full Declaration if you are interested.

 

The slides from this session can be found here