Press Release: Indigenous and Environmental Groups Denounce Trump Administration Proposal to Revoke Greater Chaco Protections
For Immediate Release, April 3, 2026
Press Release
Indigenous and Environmental Groups Denounce Trump Administration Proposal to Revoke Greater Chaco Protections
Diné, Pueblo, and allied groups condemn the Trump Administration’s proposal to revoke Public Land Order (PLO) 7923, which withdraws federal minerals from future oil and gas leasing within approximately 10-miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
PLO 7923 was a carefully crafted compromise, achieved over years of negotiation and Tribal consultation. It is a step forward as part of a much longer and ongoing fight to protect land, water, sacred places, and community wellness across the Greater Chaco Landscape.
Trump’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is allowing only 7 days for the public to provide scoping comments regarding the proposed revocation. Advocates are calling on the BLM to extend the scoping period and hold in-person public comment sessions in directly impacted Pueblo and Navajo communities.
There are already nearly 40,000 oil and gas wells in the Greater Chaco Landscape, which cause myriad harms to public and environmental health. The actions of the Trump Administration put the entire Greater Chaco Landscape in even more danger. In addition to proposing to revoke needed protections for a place of utmost cultural and environmental significance, Trump’s Department of the Interior has resumed quarterly oil and gas leasing in the region and ramped up permitting for new wells.
Statements:
“The allotted lands held by my family lie in the watersheds that feed in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park and we recognize that those lands are a part of the world’s heritage. The Bureau of Land Management’s actions are a breach of the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
“Additionally, my family, who still value traditional Diné ceremonies and lifeways, recognizes the Navajo Nation Historic and Heritage Preservation Department’s ethnographic study that interviewed medicine people who conclude that landscape level protections are needed to preserve the history and heritage of the Navajo people. We understand the significant responsibility that we hold as Individual allotment shareholders and stakeholders. Our lands contain important Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Oil and gas extraction will injure our access to the knowledge that lies not just in landscape but the viewscapes.
“Mineral leasing has already impacted my family’s health, history and heritage because the oil and gas operators have spilled toxic waste on my family’s lands and not communicated the cumulative impacts their mineral development will have on the defined history, heritage and health of the local Navajo allotment holders and stakeholders. It disheartens me to witness the Navajo Nation acquiesce to outside multi-national corporate financial interests at the expense of the Navajo Nation’s cultural sovereignty.
“My family calls upon the New Mexico congressional delegation, who are our representatives and trustees, to investigate how the extremely brief revocation process is a breach of fiduciary duty and how such an action violates the UNDRIP.”
-Mario Atencio, Atencio Family Spokesperson and Allotment Stakeholder, mpatencio@gmail.com
“The proposed revocation of the Chaco withdrawal disregards years of Tribal leadership, community input, and careful federal process that recognized the need to protect this landscape. The Greater Chaco Region is a living, cultural landscape that continues to sustain Pueblo and Dine communities. Rolling back protections would deepen existing environmental and public health burdens and undermine federal trust responsibilities. We urge the Department of Interior to uphold the withdrawal and honor its commitments to Tribes and impacted communities.”
– Marissa Naranjo, Deputy Director, Sovereign Energy, marissa@sovereignenergy.org
“As an organization that works with Pueblo youth, we observe and maintain the right to fully enjoy our ancestral landscapes, sacred sites, and cultural resources. Our organization’s work has cultivated an urgent and necessary position to protect living cultural landscapes like the Greater Chaco Landscape. This streamlined revocation of this Public Land Order diminishes the advocacy of Pueblo tribal leadership and their right to meaningful consultation and free prior and informed consent. As well as undermining the community stakeholders who live in the region who have felt the health, environmental and spiritual adverse impacts of the oil and gas industry. It is the Department of the Interior’s duty to consider all sovereign tribal nations’ positions and participation in this NEPA process, and a 7-day scoping period does not define anything meaningful. Pueblo Action Alliance opposes the two alternative actions proposed by the Bureau of Land Management and Department of Interior and urges the agencies to determine a No Action Alternative to keep the moratorium in place. This has been years of work from tribal governments, Indigenous organizations, and Dine and Pueblo community members which doesn’t warrant a decision with such haste. We urge you to honor this living landscape and maintain aspects of protection.”
– Julia Bernal, Executive Director, Pueblo Action Alliance, julia@puebloactionalliance.org
“We call on our Diné relatives to stop making decisions that disseminate the power of natural law in the protection of Chaco. We are people of the land as we honor her resources and need to educate our leadership to stop unnecessary natural gas and oil drilling for short term financial gain. It is sad to witness the Navajo Nation file a lawsuit on Chaco in the name of economic development. We SUPPORT the 10-mile buffer zone against natural gas and oil development as it accelerates climate change on the land, air, water and health of Diné people. We conducted a Health Initiative and Assessment (HIA) study reporting the negative impacts of oil and gas to community health. There were ten recommendations from the HIA study to uphold Diné fundamental law and stop the greed of western energy extraction that lead to suffering consequences of illness. We feel the power of Chaco’s night sky as sacred grandmother masanii moon reminds the people and its leaders to make wise decisions. We need to place our feet back on the land as our sheep hold connection to the nourishment from Chaco’s sacred landscape. Chaco tells us a story of balance to a future. We all need to be protectors of Chaco.”
-Hazel James-Tohe, Coordinator, Diné Centered Research and Evaluation (DCRE)
"The Trump administration’s attacks on the 10-mile protection zone around Chaco Culture National historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are obscene. But this administration will not be around forever and we will continue to push for community protections in intensively overexploited areas such as Greater Chaco so we may all enjoy a healthy, livable future in which our leaders prioritize environmental justice.”
– Rose Rushing, attorney, Western Environmental Law Center, rushing@westernlaw.org
“Many citizens, groups, communities and tribes in Northwestern New Mexico have worked very hard over decades to protect the Greater Chaco Region, including the preeminent World Heritage Site that expands throughout the Four Corners. The seven day scoping period and fast-tracked Environmental Assessment designed to lead to arbitrarily revoking the mineral withdrawal around Chaco Culture National Historical Park are highly flawed. In the haste to achieve energy dominance at all costs, it is critical that we stand up to the Trump administration to protect Chacoan resources and living communities in New Mexico.”
-Mike Eisenfeld, Energy and Climate Program Director, San Juan Citizens Alliance, mike@sanjuancitizens.org
“Our lands, Peoples, and cultural sites deserve that current protections for the 10 mile buffer around greater Chaco put in place through years of collective public process be upheld. This short scoping period and proposed revocation of PLO 7923 is blatantly corrupt. We call for an extended scoping period with robust tribal consultation and involvement. As midwives, birthworkers, and health care providers from and residing on tribal lands, Breath of My Heart Birthplace calls for the centering and justice for not only the living descendants of Chaco, but for reprieve for our beloved Earth mother from extractive violence. Our communities have the right to birth and raise our children in a clean and healthy environment. It is long overdue that the BLM align with Indigenous values of this place and a life affirming culture.”
-Beata Tsosie, Organizational Director, Navi Pin Haa Un Muu/Breath of My Heart Birthplace
“This is yet another shameful example of the Trump administration ignoring local and Indigenous voices, sidelining due process and pandering to the toxic whims of the oil and gas industry. As it is, only part of the Greater Chaco Landscape is protected from fossil fuel extraction, and now the BLM is rushing to auction off the rest of this sacred place and litter it with oil and gas wells. The decades of hard-fought advocacy and negotiations that led to these protections should be honored, not ignored.”
-Zach Pavlik, Staff Attorney, Center for Biological Diversity, zpavlik@biologicaldiversity.org
“Opening up the Greater Chaco region to oil and gas drilling threatens the health and safety of nearby communities and the integrity of this sacred landscape. The people who call this place home have made their voices clear – they want this place protected, not sold out. Revoking protections for Chaco Canyon would damage relationships with Tribal Nations and sacrifice cultural and historical resources to boost corporate profits. We stand with local communities who continue to ask for permanent protections for this special place.”
-Diane Reese, ExCom Chair, Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club
“Stripping protections from the Greater Chaco Landscape is not just a policy decision—it is a profound failure to respect Indigenous sovereignty, cultural heritage, and environmental responsibility. Public Land Order 7923 represents years of hard-fought compromise and meaningful Tribal consultation, yet its proposed revocation dismisses those voices in favor of short-term industrial gain. With tens of thousands of existing oil and gas wells already burdening the region, expanding extraction threatens to further degrade air, water, and community health. Equally troubling is the rushed and inadequate public comment period, which silences the very communities most impacted. Protecting Chaco means honoring its people, preserving its sacred sites, and committing to a future where cultural integrity and environmental stewardship are not sacrificed for profit.”
- Mary Gutierrez, Environmental Scientist and Director, Earth Ethics, Inc. earthethicsaction@gmail.com
“Those that are in support of rescinding the small buffer zone around our Sacred Chaco Canyon do not respect Mother Earth and her inhabitants. They are led by greed and money. We as Native Indigenous Peoples preach living in harmony, Hozho, with Mother Earth and our environment and yet some want to destroy and desecrate the Sacred land. Again, as some do not want to understand, the Buffer Zone does apply to private or Tribal land. Only Federal Public land. Those that want to destroy and desecrate the Sacred land are welcome to continue to do so at their leisure. We must protect our Sacred Chaco Canyon and the Greater Chaco landscape, for our next seven generations. The land of sacrifice must end!”
Terry Sloan, Director, Southwest Native Cultures
