For a thousand years, the magnificent stone dwellings of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico have stood untouched, relics that give today's generation the opportunity to step back into the ancient world of the Pueblo people.
Now
Donald Trump wants to tear down the protective buffer that has kept oil and gas rigs off this sacred ground, so drilling companies can move in.
Sign the petition to stop the destruction of this precious world heritage site! We demand Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the Bureau of Land Management abandon this plan and keep the drilling-free buffer zone around Chaco Culture National Historical Park intact.
In 2023, the federal government created a 10-mile buffer zone shielding Chaco from oil, gas, and uranium development, after decades of industrial encroachment threatened tribal lands, water, and the site's famously dark night skies, perfect for star gazing and astronomical study.
Trump's Bureau of Land Management now wants to erase that buffer and hand over more than 336,000 acres next to the site to oil and gas companies. Nearly 100,000 people submitted comments
opposing the plan during a rushed two-week comment period, but the administration is pushing ahead anyway.
"We will be a rich nation again and it is the liquid gold under our feet that will help us do it," Trump has said of his drilling agenda. That's how he talks about land that Pueblo people have called sacred for a thousand years. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland put it bluntly, warning
the plan would cause "irreversible damage" and accusing Trump and his BLM director of "a clear lack of consideration and
disrespect for the lives that New Mexicans live."Chaco Canyon isn't just a historic ruin standing in the way of a drilling lease. It's a
living, sacred place for Pueblo and Navajo people, it is an internationally recognized and
cherished world heritage site, and it is one of the last places in the country where you can still see the sky the way ancient astronomers once studied it.
Drilling near Chaco would bring
toxic air pollution, the risk of water contamination from fracking, and the bright lights and gas flares that would wipe out its dark skies for good. Families living near existing wells outside the buffer zone already report rigs within a hundred feet of their homes, along with the
health problems that come with them. Trump wants to let that same industrial activity creep to the edge of one of America's most treasured cultural sites, even though nearly all of the surrounding federal land is already leased for oil and gas.
There is no shortage driving this decision, only a president chasing profit at the expense of sacred land that was never his to sell.Sign to tell Secretary Burgum and the Bureau of Land Management to reject Trump's plan and permanently protect the land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from drilling.