Greater Chaco named endangered historic place, Zuni governor condemns revocation
Greater Chaco’s new endangered listing reinforced Zuni warnings that revoking Chaco buffer protections could leave sacred sites exposed to drilling across the San Juan Basin.
The Greater Chaco Cultural Landscape has been named one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2026, and Pueblo of Zuni Governor Arden Kucate said the federal move to roll back protections around Chaco Culture National Historical Park dishonors tribal commitments.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation said the annual endangered list is now in its 39th year and has highlighted more than 350 sites since 1988. Each of the 11 places named for 2026 will receive a one-time $25,000 grant tied to the nation’s 250th anniversary. Greater Chaco was also placed on the endangered list in 2011, underscoring how long tribes have warned that the landscape remains under pressure.
The landscape spans thousands of square miles across northwestern New Mexico and reaches into Arizona, Colorado and Utah. It includes Chaco Culture National Historical Park, state trust lands, tribal lands, private lands and federal lands. The National Park Service says Chaco was a major center of ancestral Puebloan culture from about AD 850 to 1250, and more than 2,300 archaeological sites have been documented in the park area.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park was first protected in 1907, expanded in 1980 and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. For many Pueblo and Hopi communities, it is not just a preserved ruin but an ancestral homeland tied to ceremony, memory and stewardship across the region, including communities in and around McKinley County.
The immediate fight is over the 10-mile buffer around the park. In 2023, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland withdrew approximately 336,404.42 acres of public lands for 20 years to shield the greater connected landscape from oil and gas development and mining claims. The Bureau of Land Management then opened a public comment period from April 1 to April 7, 2026, on a proposal to revoke that withdrawal.
The National Trust warned that the buffer protects a viewshed of 91,793 acres with numerous archaeological sites and urged BLM to pause, slow down and consult tribes before taking any action. The group also warned that opening land outside the park boundary could expose sacred sites to oil and gas development.
For Zuni and other tribal leaders, the stakes go beyond a designation or a grant. The question now is whether federal consultation, promised stewardship and long-standing tribal warnings will actually protect the ancestral landscape before new drilling pressure reaches the ground around Chaco Canyon.
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