#MaunaKea has gone global.

In the past few months, the hashtags #MaunaKea, #WeAreMaunaKea, #TMTShutdown and #WeSupportTMT, have been tweeted or Instagramed thousands of times from dozens of countries, some as far away as Iran, Japan and Indonesia.

Protesting through social media is a clearly 21st century way of opposing the $1.4 billion telescope that is being constructed on Mauna Kea. The project has been portrayed as disrespectful to Native Hawaiians who consider the mountain sacred.

Civil Beat mapped 3,810 geotagged tweets that were posted in the last month. Each point on the map represents a tweet. The points on the map are color coded, depending on whether they use #MaunaKea, #WeAreMaunaKea, #WeSupportTMT or  #TMTShutdown.

What stories will you help make possible?

Civil Beat’s reporting has helped paint a more complete picture of Hawaiʻi with stories that you won’t find anywhere else.

Your donation today will ensure that our newsroom has the resources to provide you with thorough, unbiased reporting on the issues that matter most to Hawaiʻi.

Give now. We can’t do this without you.

About the Author