The Bureau of Land Management is holding a series of listening sessions on whether to ban oil and gas leasing around Chaco Canyon for the next 20 years.
Last year, when Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited the ancient site of Chaco Canyon, she kicked off a period of formal consideration of a process which would bar new oil and gas leasing for twenty years.
"The land gives us everything we need to sustain ourselves, and we must care for it," she said in a press conference in November.
The ban would cover a ten mile radius around the site which was the center of high desert culture a millennium ago.
Now, the Bureau of Land Management is in the midst of a 90 day consultation period, including two listening sessions in person in Farmington on February 23 and one which is also accessible online on February 24.
Reyaun Francisco of the Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project tells KUNM he wants the ban to go ahead, "to prevent oil and gas from destroying cultural resources that have been here for millennia.
"And cultural resources that are important for us as indigenous peoples, to know where we came from, and to know where our ancestors are still living and fighting for us today."
The February 24 meeting is at 6pm. Details for attending are here.
