[PopePompous]

I don't think this ruling changes much. The TMT project had permission to start construction 3 years ago. They could not even hold the ground-breaking ceremony, because protesters blocked the access road. Every time the TMT construction crews tried to drive up the mountain, protesters would stand in the road, and block the vehicles. A couple of hours later police would show up. They would stand around for 3ish more hours, and then arrest perhaps 5% of the people blocking the road. By the time that was done, it was too late for the construction crews to get to the summit and do any work, so everyone drove back down. The few people who were arrested were immediately released once they arrived in Hilo, so they'd be ready to do it all again the next day if the crews tried to return to the mountain. No significant fines were ever levied on the arrested protesters.

The only way the TMT construction will be able to proceed is if local law enforcement is willing to arrest dozens of protesters (including "aunties" - photogenic elderly Hawaiian women) every week day, and not release them immediately. There is absolutely no reason to believe that will happen.

Even if the local law enforcement officials are willing to perform mass arrests, there are lots of other pressure points that the protesters could attack. I would not be surprised to see the protesters shut down the University of Hawaii, which hosts the Institute for Astronomy that runs Maunakea Observatory, because that university has a very active Hawaiian Studies program.

I worked for an observatory on Maunakea when the the first set of TMT construction protests took place. The protesters were allowed to build an unpermitted shelter building, to make blocking the road more convenient for them. If they spend half a day piling rocks in the road, they can declare that it is a sacred shrine, and the road maintenance crews cannot simply remove it. Meanwhile, our observatory had to go through a formal review process with an outside board if we wanted to move a small weather station from one side of our building's roof to another side.