There are places where the landscape feels older than the country around it.
Chaco Canyon is one of those places.
In the high desert of northwestern New Mexico, massive stone structures rise from a landscape of mesas, arroyos, sagebrush, and open sky.
More than a thousand years ago, Chacoan peoples built a remarkable network of great houses, roads, communities, and ceremonial spaces across the San Juan Basin.
Today, Chaco Culture National Historical Park protects the heart of that landscape.
But the park is only a small piece of the larger Chacoan world.
For generations, archaeologists, Tribal Nations, public land managers, and local communities have recognized that the archaeological and cultural landscape extends far beyond the park boundary.
That is why the land surrounding Chaco matters.
In 2023, the federal government established a 20-year mineral withdrawal covering roughly 336,000 acres within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The withdrawal was intended to protect the surrounding landscape from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims while preserving existing valid rights.
Now, that protection is being reconsidered.
In July 2026, the Bureau of Land Management proposed revoking the withdrawal.
If finalized, the proposed action would reopen approximately 336,404 acres to mining and mineral leasing.
The park itself would remain.
But the landscape surrounding it could change dramatically.
Explore the Chaco Canyon Map
The map below shows the relationship between Chaco Culture National Historical Park, the 10-mile withdrawal area, surrounding public lands, existing infrastructure, and the broader landscape.
The boundary of a national park can make a landscape look neatly divided.
Chaco is anything but.
The archaeological record, cultural connections, wildlife habitat, watersheds, and viewsheds extend well beyond the park boundary.
The map helps show why the question isn’t simply whether development happens inside Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
It is what happens around it.
```What Is the Chaco Withdrawal?
In 2023, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland signed a public land order withdrawing approximately 336,000 acres of federal public lands within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park from new mineral development for 20 years, subject to valid existing rights.
The withdrawal applies to federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
It does not make the land wilderness.
It does not close the land to recreation.
And it does not erase existing mineral rights.
Instead, it temporarily removes certain federal lands from new mineral leasing and mining claims.
The goal was to protect the larger Chacoan landscape from potential impacts associated with oil and gas development and locatable mineral exploration and mining.
It was a relatively narrow tool.
But it covered a huge landscape.
More than 300,000 acres.
Ten miles in every direction from the park.
A buffer designed to give the archaeological landscape some breathing room.
Why Chaco Is Different
Chaco is not simply another archaeological site.
It is one of the most significant archaeological landscapes in North America.
The canyon contains massive Puebloan great houses, roads, ceremonial structures, and other archaeological resources associated with the Chacoan world.
But the significance of Chaco doesn’t end at the walls of those buildings.
The surrounding landscape contains archaeological sites, roads, artifacts, cultural resources, and places that remain important to Indigenous communities today.
The federal government recognized this broader landscape when establishing the withdrawal.
The goal was not simply to protect a collection of ruins.
It was to protect the context in which those ruins exist.
That distinction matters.
A great house surrounded by an industrial landscape is still standing.
But it is not the same place.
A Cultural Landscape
It is easy to think about archaeology as something that exists in isolated locations.
A ruin.
A building.
A site marked on a map.
But Chaco is better understood as a landscape.
The ancient Chacoans did not build their civilization around a single archaeological site.
They built roads.
They established communities.
They constructed great houses.
They moved across the desert.
They developed relationships with distant places throughout the Four Corners.
The landscape itself was part of the system.
That means the spaces between archaeological sites matter.
The mesas matter.
The viewsheds matter.
The old roads matter.
The surrounding archaeological sites matter.
And the relative absence of modern industrial infrastructure matters too.
What Does Revoking the Withdrawal Actually Mean?
This is an important distinction.
Revoking the withdrawal would not automatically put oil wells or mines on every acre surrounding Chaco.
It would remove the additional mineral protections created by the 2023 withdrawal.
BLM’s proposed action would reopen the affected lands to mining and mineral leasing, subject to existing land-management plans and applicable laws.
That doesn’t mean every acre would immediately be developed.
A company would still need to obtain the necessary rights and permits.
Specific projects would still be subject to applicable requirements.
But the basic landscape-level protection would be gone.
The door would be open again.
And that changes what can happen next.
Why Development Around Chaco Matters
Industrial development doesn’t have to physically destroy an archaeological site to affect it.
A road can cross a landscape.
A well pad can change a view.
A transmission line can alter a horizon.
Bright lights can change the night sky.
Noise can carry across open desert.
Heavy equipment can disturb soils.
New infrastructure can make previously remote areas easier to access.
And once infrastructure arrives, additional development can become easier.
The impacts can therefore extend far beyond the footprint of a single well pad.
That is especially important in a landscape where the setting itself is part of the cultural experience.
Chaco and the Night Sky
Look up at the sky in Chaco after dark and one of the things that becomes immediately apparent is what isn’t there.
There are very few lights.
The Milky Way stretches across the sky.
Stars become visible that disappear almost completely from cities.
The darkness is not simply a recreational attraction.
It is part of the character of the landscape.
The National Park Service recognizes Chaco as an important dark-sky landscape, and the ability to experience the night sky has become an important part of visiting the park.
Industrial development can change that.
Well pads require lighting.
Facilities can produce light.
Flaring can brighten the horizon.
Road traffic can introduce additional nighttime illumination.
Each source may seem small.
Together, they can change the character of a remote landscape.
And unlike a damaged archaeological structure, light pollution doesn’t need to physically touch the park to affect it.
Water in an Arid Landscape
Chaco exists in a desert.
That makes water particularly important.
The surrounding landscape is shaped by intermittent streams, arroyos, groundwater, seasonal precipitation, and the movement of water through a dry environment.
Industrial development can introduce roads, pads, pipelines, storage facilities, and other infrastructure into that system.
Those disturbances can alter drainage and increase erosion.
Oil and gas development can also require significant quantities of water depending on the activity and technology involved.
And in an arid landscape, water is never an insignificant consideration.
The question isn’t simply whether there is enough water for a single project.
It is how development interacts with the larger watershed over time.
The Navajo Nation and Indigenous Communities
Chaco is also a living cultural landscape.
It is not simply an archaeological story about people who lived here a thousand years ago.
Chacoan sites and landscapes remain important to Indigenous peoples today.
The surrounding region is home to Navajo communities, and Chaco holds cultural significance for multiple Pueblo and other Indigenous communities.
That makes decisions about the landscape more complicated than a simple question of federal land management.
The federal government is managing land within a landscape that has deep cultural connections extending far beyond federal boundaries.
The 2023 withdrawal followed extensive public involvement.
BLM reported receiving more than 110,000 verbal and written comments during the earlier withdrawal process.
The scale of that response demonstrated that Chaco is not an obscure land-management issue.
People care deeply about what happens here.
Existing Oil and Gas Development
It is also important to understand what the withdrawal did not do.
The 2023 withdrawal did not erase existing mineral rights.
Existing valid leases could continue.
Existing wells could continue producing.
Additional wells could be drilled on existing leases under the terms of those rights.
That means the landscape was never completely insulated from energy development.
Instead, the withdrawal created a boundary around new federal mineral development.
The distinction is important because it shows that the debate isn’t necessarily about choosing between an untouched landscape and total industrial development.
There is already a complicated mix of existing rights, private and tribal lands, federal lands, roads, wells, communities, archaeological resources, and conservation areas.
The question is what additional development should be allowed—and where.
The Bigger Landscape
One of the most striking things about Chaco is how quickly the perspective changes when you leave the park.
Inside the park, the great houses dominate the landscape.
Outside the boundary, the landscape opens up again.
Mesas stretch toward the horizon.
Roads cross the desert.
Oil and gas infrastructure appears in some areas.
Private, tribal, state, and federal lands are interwoven.
The park is an island within a much larger landscape.
And islands can be vulnerable.
A protected place doesn’t necessarily remain isolated from what happens around it.
The surrounding landscape can determine its ecological health, its viewsheds, its cultural setting, and the experience of visiting it.
Why a Ten-Mile Buffer?
The idea behind the withdrawal was not that ten miles represents some magical ecological boundary.
It doesn’t.
The landscape doesn’t suddenly stop being important at 10.1 miles.
The buffer is a management tool.
It creates a zone around the park where certain forms of new mineral development are restricted.
That provides some additional protection to archaeological resources and the broader setting of Chaco while still allowing existing rights to continue.
It is a compromise.
It doesn’t permanently prohibit development.
It doesn’t protect every culturally important landscape surrounding Chaco.
But it recognizes something important:
sometimes protecting a place means looking beyond the property line.
A Landscape-Level Question
This is where Chaco fits into a much larger conversation about public lands.
Environmental and cultural resources are often managed according to administrative boundaries.
National park.
BLM field office.
Private property.
Tribal land.
State land.
Mineral estate.
But landscapes don’t recognize those boundaries.
Wildlife moves across them.
Water moves across them.
Viewsheds cross them.
Archaeological landscapes cross them.
Cultural connections cross them.
And industrial development can affect all of them.
That is why landscape-level planning matters.
A single well pad may not seem significant.
A single road may not seem significant.
A single transmission line may not seem significant.
But together, infrastructure can transform the character of an entire landscape.
What Is Being Proposed Now?
In July 2026, the Bureau of Land Management announced that it is evaluating whether to revoke the Chaco withdrawal.
The proposed action would revoke the withdrawal in full and reopen approximately 336,404 acres to mining and mineral leasing. BLM states that management of mineral resources would then conform to the 2003 Farmington Resource Management Plan.
The agency is evaluating the proposal through the federal planning and environmental review process.
That means the future of the withdrawal is not yet settled.
But the possibility of revocation represents a significant change from the protections established in 2023.
The same landscape that was recently identified as important enough to protect from new mineral development could once again become available for those uses.
Why We Built This Map
We created the Public Land Threats Map because public land issues are often difficult to understand from a headline alone.
“Revoke the Chaco withdrawal” sounds like an administrative action.
And technically, it is.
But put the withdrawal on a map and the landscape becomes visible.
You can see the park.
The 10-mile buffer.
The surrounding public lands.
The roads.
The existing development.
The archaeological landscape.
The communities.
And the enormous amount of land that sits between individual sites.
That context matters.
We’re not trying to replace archaeological research, Tribal perspectives, agency documents, or scientific studies.
We’re trying to make the geography easier to understand.
Because sometimes the most important part of a public land decision is simply seeing where it happens.
Location matters.
What Happens Next?
The Chaco withdrawal is an evolving issue.
BLM is currently evaluating the proposed revocation of the 2023 public land order.
If the withdrawal is revoked, approximately 336,000 acres would once again be available for new mineral leasing and mining under the applicable land-management framework.
That would not guarantee development.
But it would remove a landscape-scale restriction that was specifically created to protect the Chacoan landscape.
For people who care about Chaco, that makes it important to follow the underlying planning documents rather than simply the headlines.
There are also simple ways to stay engaged:
- Follow updates from the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service.
- Learn about Chaco’s archaeological and cultural history.
- Listen to the perspectives of Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities connected to the landscape.
- Read the underlying planning and environmental documents.
- Pay attention to opportunities for public participation.
- Support organizations working to protect Chaco and the surrounding landscape.
Public land decisions can feel abstract.
A map makes them tangible.
The Bigger Question
The debate over Chaco is often framed as a choice between energy development and preservation.
We don’t think it has to be that simple.
New Mexico has a long history of energy development.
The country needs energy.
Communities depend on economic opportunity.
Mineral development is a legitimate use of public lands.
But Chaco represents something that is difficult to replace.
An archaeological record that cannot be recreated.
A cultural landscape that remains important to Indigenous communities.
A dark sky that becomes harder to find every year.
A desert landscape where the relationship between people and place stretches back thousands of years.
Once an archaeological site is destroyed, it cannot be rebuilt.
Once a landscape is filled with infrastructure, it is difficult to make it feel remote again.
And once the context surrounding a cultural site is gone, some of the meaning of the site can disappear with it.
Chaco doesn’t need to be frozen in time.
But it does deserve thoughtful decisions about what we choose to build around it.
**The ruins are what first bring us to Chaco.
The landscape is what makes us stay.**
Sources & Further Reading
The Public Land Threats Map is an independent project built from publicly available government documents, agency data, scientific research, planning documents, and other sources.
Because the proposed revocation of the Chaco withdrawal is an active federal process, we recommend consulting the original Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service documents for the most current information.
Federal Agencies
- Bureau of Land Management — Chaco Culture National Historical Park Area Withdrawal
- Bureau of Land Management — Withdrawals
- National Park Service — Chaco Culture National Historical Park
- National Park Service — Chaco Archaeology
The 2023 Withdrawal
In 2023, the Department of the Interior established a 20-year withdrawal covering approximately 336,000 acres within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The withdrawal protects federal lands from new mining claims and mineral leasing while preserving valid existing rights.
The original environmental assessment described the purpose of the withdrawal as protecting the Chacoan landscape and its natural, educational, scientific, paleontological, and archaeological values from potential impacts associated with mineral development.
2026 Proposed Revocation
In July 2026, BLM announced that it was evaluating revocation of the Chaco withdrawal.
The proposed action would revoke the withdrawal in full and reopen approximately 336,404 acres to mining and mineral leasing.
The proposal is part of an ongoing federal land-management and environmental review process.
About This Project
The Public Land Threats Map is an independent project created by Public Land Lovers.
We are travelers, scientists, geographers, and public land enthusiasts who believe that understanding a landscape is one of the best ways to appreciate it.
We built this map to make complicated public land issues easier to see, explore, and understand.
If you find an important source, project, or piece of information that we missed, we’d love to hear from you.