Dive Brief:

• The Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources voted late Friday to make it illegal for anyone to come within a mile overnight of the access road to the Mauna Loa construction site where the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope is to be built.

• The site has been shut down since mid-April after protesters occupied the access road around the clock and refused to allow construction crews or their equipment to get to the job site. The new rule is designed to allow construction to resume.

• The law, a temporary, 120-day measure, will allow motorists to drive past — but not stop at — the road, and it prohibits camping gear. Protesters responded that they would not stop blocking access to the job site, which they have said is sacred ground and should not be used to build.

Dive Insight:

Ironically, the presence of hundreds of protesters is damaging the area’s natural resources they are fighting to protect, state officials said during a hearing on the measure. Those opposed to the law, however, said the restrictions would prevent native Hawaiians access to the mountain to practice their religion.

“It’s sad that it has come to this point,” Chris Yuen, a member of the board, told The Washington Post. Still, he said, the rule is necessary to “keep order on the mountain” while construction on the telescope — one of the world’s largest — continues.