GREATER CHACO LANDSCAPE

Our friends at Archaeology Southwest just released a new film, “Protecting Chaco’s 10-Mile Zone,” that illustrates the urgent need to protect the Greater Chaco Landscape and its cultural resources from encroaching oil and gas development in northwest New Mexico.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a World Heritage site that is thought to be the center of what was once a hub of Indigenous civilization and the ancestral home of both Pueblo and Navajo peoples. The area holds deep cultural and spiritual significance for many Tribal nations to this day.

The mini-documentary is produced by Paul Reed with Archaeology Southwest, and filmed and edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Wallace.

“We are thrilled to have released our film ‘Protecting Chaco’s 10-Mile Zone,” said Paul Reed, Preservation Archaeologist with Archaeology Southwest. “The film showcases the voices of Pueblo and Navajo cultural and conservation leaders and the compelling case they make for protecting the amazing World Heritage cultural sites and landscape around Chaco Culture National Historical Park.”

Hear from Pueblo and Diné leaders in their own words as they speak to the living and vital connections their communities have to the Greater Chaco Landscape and why it must be protected from further oil and gas development.

The Interior Department is evaluating a proposal to administratively withdraw roughly 351,000 acres of federal lands surrounding Chaco from future oil and gas leasing for a period of 20 years. The Bureau of Land Management accepted comments on the proposal through May 6, 2022. The proposed withdrawal would only apply to federal surface and subsurface lands, it would not impact Navajo and private land that is checkerboarded within the proposed protected zone, so Tribal members who live in the area can still freely use and develop their lands. The New Mexico State Land Office has already withdrawn all of the state lands around Chaco from leasing.