New Mexico extends drilling restrictions on state lands near Chaco

Monday, December 18, 2023

New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard signed an executive order last week to prohibit new oil and natural gas leasing for the next 20 years on state land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a World Heritage Site that is sacred to Native Americans.

Garcia Richard's latest order extends a temporary moratorium that she signed when she took office in 2019. It will cover more than 113 square miles of state trust land within a checkerboard of private, state, federal and tribal holdings in northwestern New Mexico. “The greater Chaco landscape is one of the most special places in the world, and it would be foolish not to do everything in our power to protect it,” Garcia Richard said in a statement.

Last summer the federal government also put in place a 20-year moratorium on new drilling and leasing in the region surrounding Chaco in response to ongoing efforts by pueblos and other southwestern Tribal nations that have cultural ties to the region and want to see it protected.

“Chaco Canyon and the greater Chaco region play an important role in the history, religion and culture of the Zuni people and other pueblo people as well,” said Cordelia Hooee, the lieutenant governor of Zuni Pueblo, calling it a historic day. “Our shared cultural landscapes must be protected into perpetuity, for our survival as Indigenous people is tied to them.”

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We are extremely disappointed that, after all these years, BNSF has refused to change its business practices to prevent the unnecessary deaths of Montana’s iconic grizzlies, resulting in the tragic deaths of three bears just this fall. When a company chooses to operate in the epicenter of key habitat for a threatened species, it must take some responsibility to adapt practices to minimize its impacts on these animals.”

—Sarah McMillan, Western Environmental Law Center, Daily Montanan

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Photo by @rockynps