Most weeks, the people who pack a hearing to fight a project lose. On Friday, June 27, 2026, a North Shore community won. Gov. Josh Green signed Act 172, a state law that bans commercial gondolas, cable cars, ski lifts, and other private aerial ropeways from being built anywhere in Hawaii. [1] Government projects are exempt only if the state Legislature signs off. [2]

The law has an address. For years, residents of Oahu's North Shore, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, and environmental advocates had fought a proposal by Kaukonahua Ranch to run a commercial gondola up the slopes of Mount Kaala. [1] Act 172 ends it. [1]

What they were fighting

The objection was never abstract. Gil Riviere, one of the opponents, put it plainly: "This was the wrong project, for that area. It would have desecrated the hillside and the mountains." [1] Racquel Achiu described the exhaustion that fed years of turnout: "local people are just sick and tired of just taking it." [1]

How a local fight became a statewide law

Rather than fight each ropeway one at a time, the new law bans the whole category across Hawaii and puts the burden on any future government project to win explicit approval from the Legislature before it can build one. [2] A bill carried through the statehouse became Act 172 when the governor signed it on June 27. [1][2] The ranch's general manager did not comment. [1]

What it does not do

Honesty is the house rule, so here is what the law leaves unfinished. It is prospective: it stops this gondola and bars future ropeways, and it does not remove aerial infrastructure already standing elsewhere. It is also narrow to ropeways, and other parts of the ranch's plans for the land were reported to remain approved, so the larger question of what gets built on that hillside is not fully closed. [2] A mountain is protected. The work of watching the land goes on.

Why it counts

The win here is bigger than one hillside. It is a proof of concept that gets rarer every year: ordinary people, organizing for a long time against money and momentum, turned a neighborhood fight into a law that protects every mountain in the state. The gondola is dead, the slope above the North Shore stays quiet, and a community that kept showing up is the reason. That is worth saying out loud.