Greater Chaco landscape named one of America’s most endangered places

More than 336,404 acres around Chaco Culture National Historical Park could be reopened to mineral leasing and mining entry if federal officials revoke the 10-mile buffer zone, and that fight has now put the Greater Chaco Cultural Landscape on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2026 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

The National Trust announced the list on May 20, its 39th annual roundup of threatened historic places, and said each site will receive a one-time $25,000 grant. The Greater Chaco listing was nominated by the Pueblo of Acoma and backed by the All Pueblo Council of Governors, which represents 20 sovereign Pueblo nations in New Mexico and Texas.

For Apache County, the dispute reaches far beyond a monument in New Mexico. It runs through Window Rock, where Navajo leaders are weighing land protection, cultural access and development pressure for communities across the county. The Greater Chaco Cultural Landscape stretches across parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah, and the National Park Service says the World Heritage property includes Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument and smaller sites managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The stakes are tied to Public Land Order No. 7923, the federal withdrawal that removed about 336,404.42 acres from new mineral leasing and mining entry for 20 years. The Bureau of Land Management opened a process in 2026 to revoke that withdrawal in full, and the proposed change would reopen all of those acres to development. The public comment period lasted just seven days, a timeline Pueblo leaders said left little room for tribal communities to organize.

The fight has sharpened the split among tribes. Pueblo leaders say the buffer zone is the product of decades of advocacy to protect ancestral and sacred lands, while the Navajo Nation has challenged the federal withdrawal in court. Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory B. Wormuth allowed the Pueblos of Acoma and Laguna to intervene in that lawsuit on April 15, 2025, after the Navajo Nation filed its case in January 2025.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren met with the Bureau of Land Management on May 13 for government-to-government consultation on the buffer zone, and Council Delegate Danny Simpson was also present, according to the Navajo Nation. Nygren made his position plain: “The Navajo people have protected Chaco for generations,” he said. “My position is clear: leave it alone. Zero buffer zone is my stance.”

That opposition underscores how the same landscape can carry different meanings for neighboring nations. The All Pueblo Council of Governors says Pueblo and Hopi people have sustained the area for more than a thousand years, and Joey Sanchez, chairman of the council and a member of Santa Ana Pueblo, said Chaco is “not a museum but a living cultural landscape” that matters to the Pueblos, the nation and the world.

Chaco itself was established as Chaco Canyon National Monument in 1907, renamed Chaco Culture National Historical Park in 1980 and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The landscape flourished roughly between A.D. 850 and 1250, and today the future of its protections will shape whether Apache County residents see stronger safeguards for sacred sites or a renewed push for energy development around one of the region’s most contested cultural places.