The Bureau of Land Management has proposed removing a 10-mile drilling-free buffer around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in north-western New Mexico, according to The Guardian. The proposal would open 336,400 surrounding acres to oil and gas drilling and uranium mining, and has drawn opposition from tribal leaders, archaeologists, conservation groups and the United Nations’ cultural agency.
A UNESCO spokesperson said the agency had received information about the BLM plan and was awaiting a response from the federal government on its potential impact. The spokesperson added that the World Heritage Committee has “consistently considered extractive activities to be incompatible with world heritage status,” and that projects proposed near such sites “should be subject to appropriate impact assessments before decisions are taken.”
The buffer zone covers 336,400 acres (136,136 hectares) surrounding the 53-square-mile (137-square-kilometer) historic park, which contains ruins of ancient Pueblo settlements and is internationally recognized as a dark-skies viewing area. Allowing development within the buffer, opponents said, would introduce a “toxic haze” of air pollution that would cut visitor numbers, risk water contamination from fracking and result in bright lights and gas flaring that would ruin the pristine dark skies “once treasured by the Pueblo people.”
The buffer zone was created in 2023 under then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Its proposed removal has drawn sharp criticism from tribal and conservation leaders. Haaland said the change would cause “irreversible damage” and, of Trump and BLM Director Steve Pearce: “Their attempt to profit off this sacred place shows a clear lack of consideration and disrespect for the lives that New Mexicans live.”
Daniel Tso, a former Navajo Nation council delegate, said allotments he holds inside the buffer zone sit on “untouched” land with “pristine” aquifers. “If the oil and gas companies go in there the sacredness of that land is gone,” he said. “Outside this zone, some of these oil and gas wells are within 100ft of Navajo people’s homes, causing tremendous health impacts.” He added that outside the buffer zone the oil and gas industry has shown “total disregard for the community and total disrespect for the landholders.”
Maude Dinan, New Mexico program manager at the National Parks Conservation Association, framed the wider stakes. “This park offers an incredible transportive experience where you essentially go back in time 1,000 years to experience what the ancient Pueblo people saw,” she said. “The buffer zone is incredibly important and removing it would completely change this experience.”
The BLM’s plan sits inside a broader administration push to expand extraction on federal lands. President Trump has framed the effort in fossil-fuel terms. “We will be a rich nation again and it is the liquid gold under our feet that will help us do it,” he said. “We have the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth – and we are going to use it.”
Chaco is not the only U.S. heritage site facing proximity pressure. Some Republicans have lobbied Trump to remove a ban on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon; the administration has leased thousands of acres for oil and gas drilling near Carlsbad Caverns national park in New Mexico, another World Heritage Site; and the Everglades is already listed as “in danger” by UNESCO over the impact of development and pollution. “Unesco follows developments that may have implications for world heritage properties and their outstanding universal value,” the spokesperson said.
The 14-day public-comment period on drilling in the 336,400-acre area drew 100,000 mostly hostile submissions, an unusually large response for such a short window. Dinan said she was pessimistic the opposition would be heeded, pointing to recent administration decisions to shrink protected areas at two national monuments in Utah and to drop a rule that had safeguarded tracts of untouched forest from industrial use. “It makes me wonder where the line in the sand is; it feels that no matter how valuable or sacred a place is the administration is willing to trade it all in,” she said. “Almost all of the federal land around places like Chaco and Carlsbad is already leased for oil and gas drilling, so the idea there’s an urgent new demand for this is an illusion. There doesn’t seem like a good co-existence going on at the moment.”
The Department of the Interior, which oversees the BLM, and the National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment.