| Dear Katy, If the Trump regime's war on public lands wasn't already dangerous enough, Big Oil is now set to destroy one of the nation's most significant cultural and historical sites if we don't stop them. On the heels of Donald Trump's reckless decision to slash the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, Trump and his fossil fuel regime are ready to hand over drilling rights near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, threatening 1,000-year-old Pueblan artifacts and structures of immense cultural, historical and tribal value. Public lands enemy Sec. Ryan Zinke, who oversees the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), plans to put these lands up for lease to the fossil fuel industry this March. We must act now to prevent these sales from moving forward. Tell the Bureau of Land Management: No drilling at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Click here to sign the petition. The areas in and around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park contain the threatened ruins of Chaco Canyon – what some have referred to "as close as the U.S. gets to Egypt's pyramids and Peru's Machu Picchu" – as well as "the remnants of great houses, kivas, ancient roads and sacred places built a millennium ago by an indigenous people who became proficient in architecture, agriculture, astronomy and the arts."1,2 Today, the Navajo people, whose land surrounds the park, regard the Chaco region as culturally important, and a number of New Mexican Pueblos consider these sites sacred.3 In response to massive backlash by the public and Native people to potential drilling and fracking in the region, the BLM promised tribal leaders and lawmakers that it would delay lease sales inside a 10-mile radius of the park until 2020, when the agency could complete a full assessment to determine the impact drilling would have on ancient sacred sites. But last summer, the BLM reversed course, and in accordance with Sec. Zinke's plan to rapidly open up public lands for fossil fuel drilling, put up 4,800 acres of land near Chaco for sale, some of which lay within the buffer zone, potentially endangering sacred Native sites.4 Right now, progressive activists and tribal leaders are organizing protests on the ground to resist this wholesale giveaway of sacred Native lands to the fossil fuel industry.5 We must have their backs and demand that the Trump regime back down from these lease sales immediately. Tell the Bureau of Land Management: No drilling at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/no_chaco_drilling?t=7&akid=26958%2E12967895%2ETqaUU4 Thanks for all you do. Josh Nelson, Deputy Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: - Elizabeth Miller, "'As close as the US gets to Egypt's pyramids': how Chaco Canyon is endangered by drilling," The Guardian, Nov. 8, 2017.
- Richard Moe, "The Treasures of Chaco Canyon Are Threatened by Drilling," The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2017.
- Sen. Tom Udall, "Udall, Heinrich, Luján Urge Secretary Zinke to Defer All Leases on Land Near Chaco Culture National Historical Park," Sept. 6, 2017.
- Rebecca Moss, "N.M. leaders urge feds to protect Chaco from oil and gas encroachment," The Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept. 8, 2017.
- Rebecca Moss, "Over 100 protest BLM plans to lease land near Chaco Canyon for fracking," The Santa Fe New Mexican, Jan. 17, 2017.
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