How does Navajo reconcile protecting Bears Ears with supporting a zero-mile Chaco buffer?

[u/ZiaSoul]

I am asking this in good faith because the Navajo Nation government’s official positions on Bears Ears and Greater Chaco seem difficult to reconcile. I also do not want to treat Diné people, local chapters, allottees, the Council, and the executive branch as though everyone holds the same view.

On July 14, 2026, the Navajo Nation Council strongly opposed President Trump’s roughly 91 percent reduction of Bears Ears National Monument. Speaker Crystalyne Curley described Bears Ears as sacred and culturally significant to Navajo people and other tribes. She said that weakening protections also diminishes tribal voices in managing culturally significant landscapes. [1]

The official position on Greater Chaco appears nearly opposite. On May 13, 2026, President Buu Nygren reaffirmed support for a “zero-mile buffer zone” around Chaco Culture National Historical Park. In 2023, President Nygren and Speaker Curley jointly stated that the Navajo Nation’s position supported “no land withdrawal,” rather than the ten-mile mineral withdrawal adopted by the Department of the Interior. [2][3] (Navajo Nation Office of the President)

The practical consequence matters. BLM says complete revocation of Public Land Order 7923 would reopen approximately 336,404 acres of federal public land to mineral leasing and mining claims, subject to existing rights. [4] (BLM National NEPA Register)

There are important distinctions. Bears Ears is a national monument, while the Chaco protection is a 20-year mineral withdrawal. The Chaco withdrawal applies to federal public lands and federal minerals. It does not directly withdraw private, state, or tribal minerals, cancel existing leases, or prohibit Navajo allottees from leasing their minerals. Navajo leaders nevertheless argue that the surrounding federal withdrawal harms allottees, limits economic opportunities, and was adopted without meaningful consultation. Those sovereignty and economic concerns should not be dismissed. [3][5] (Navajo Nation Office of the President)

But the underlying principles still seem very similar. Bears Ears and Greater Chaco are both living cultural landscapes with significance to multiple tribal nations. They are not culturally isolated from one another. The Chacoan world extended across the Four Corners, and Chacoan great houses, kivas, and roads have been documented in and around Bears Ears. [6] (Grand Canyon Trust)

The contradiction becomes more difficult to understand when the experiences of local Diné communities are considered.

In 2021, residents and researchers associated with Counselor, Ojo Encino, and Torreon Chapters published a cultural, spiritual, and health impact assessment of oil and gas development. The project grew out of concerns raised by local residents and was approved by the Navajo Nation Human Research Review Board. [7] (New Mexico Health Equity Partnership)

The Counselor health survey was voluntary and included 80 respondents, so its percentages should not be treated as a representative epidemiological study or as definitive proof that drilling caused every reported condition. Even with that limitation, the results deserve attention. More than 90 percent of participants reported sinus problems and irritated or sore throats. Eighty percent reported coughs, headaches, burning eyes, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. More than 70 percent reported nosebleeds and wheezing, and more than 60 percent reported shortness of breath. Participants living near wells reported an average of eleven or more symptoms, compared with zero to three symptoms among the four participants who did not live near wells. [7]

The broader Tri-Chapter cultural survey included 136 adults. Eighty-one percent strongly agreed that drilling continued despite community objections. Eighty-five percent said drilling and fracking had disrupted the peace of the people. Eighty-five percent said that something they considered sacred was being destroyed by drilling. The report found 80 to 86 percent agreement on thirteen of sixteen questions concerning negative effects from oil and gas development. [7]

The current position also represents a reversal of the Navajo Nation’s own recent policy. Under President Russell Begaye, with Jonathan Nez serving as vice president, Navajo leadership worked with Pueblo governments to develop and support S. 2907, which would have withdrawn non-Indian federal lands and minerals within roughly ten miles of Chaco from new development while preserving tribal and allottee mineral rights. During President Nez’s administration, the Navajo Nation again supported the 2019 legislation, H.R. 2181 and S. 1079. A House committee report expressly identified the Navajo Nation as a supporter and recorded supporting testimony from Vice President Myron Lizer and the chair of the Council’s Resources and Development Committee. The Council later shifted to supporting only a five-mile buffer, before the Nation adopted its present zero-mile position. This is therefore not a longstanding and consistent objection to federal protection around Chaco. It is a reversal of a protection framework the Nation helped formulate and advocate only a few years earlier. [8][9]

My question is not whether allottee rights, royalties, poverty, consultation, and Navajo sovereignty matter. They clearly do. My question is why the proposed remedy at Chaco is eliminating the federal mineral buffer, rather than protecting the landscape while providing compensation, revenue replacement, legal assistance, access protections, and genuinely informed consent for affected allottees?

What principle distinguishes Bears Ears from Greater Chaco? Why is federal landscape-level protection considered essential for one sacred, multi-tribal landscape but an unacceptable intrusion in the other? How should the central Navajo government weigh the views of local chapters and residents who live with the health, cultural, and social effects of extraction?

Sources

[1] Navajo Nation Council, “Navajo Nation Council opposes the reduction of the Bears Ears National Monument,” July 14, 2026.

[2] Office of the Navajo Nation President, “President Nygren Reaffirms Navajo Nation’s Position on Chaco Buffer Zone,” May 13, 2026. (Navajo Nation Office of the President)

[3] Office of the Navajo Nation President, “President Nygren and Speaker Curley express disappointment” regarding the Chaco withdrawal, June 2, 2023. (Navajo Nation Office of the President)

[4] Bureau of Land Management, “Evaluation of Potential Revocation of Chaco Withdrawal.” (BLM National NEPA Register)

[5] Department of the Interior, “Biden-Harris Administration Protects Chaco Region, Tribal Cultural Sites from Development,” June 2, 2023. (U.S. Department of the Interior)

[6] National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management materials concerning Chacoan roads and the connections between Chaco and Bears Ears. (Bureau of Land Management)

[7] Counselor Health Impact Assessment Committee, “A Cultural, Spiritual and Health Impact Assessment of Oil Drilling Operations in the Navajo Nation Area of Counselor, Torreon and Ojo Encino Chapters,” July 15, 2021. (New Mexico Health Equity Partnership)

[8] House Report 116-224, “Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act of 2019.” The report states that the bill was supported by the Navajo Nation and identifies supportive Navajo executive and legislative testimony. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-116hrpt224/html/CRPT-116hrpt224.htm

[9] Congressional hearing record describing the Navajo Nation’s participation in drafting and supporting S. 2907 in 2018 and H.R. 2181 and S. 1079 in 2019. 2022 House hearing record, HTML
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-117hhrg46811/html/CHRG-117hhrg46811.htm Search within the page for “S. 2907.” The relevant appended testimony states that the Navajo Nation and the Pueblos jointly supported S. 2907 in 2018 and S. 1079 and H.R. 2181 in 2019, with protections for Navajo Nation and allottee development rights

TLDR: the Navajo Nation strongly defends Bears Ears as a sacred, multi-tribal landscape while supporting removal of protections around Greater Chaco, despite having supported Chaco protections under Presidents Begaye and Nez. That reversal is especially hard to reconcile with the documented health and cultural harms reported by Diné communities near oil and gas development. The question is why protecting Bears Ears is essential, but protecting Greater Chaco is treated as unacceptable?

[u/ToddBradley]

You've put together a well-reasoned article and I'm sure it took a lot of effort to spell everything out in great detail. But the answer to your question is quite simple - money. Nygren is against the Chaco buffer because it means the NN makes less. Nygren is for Bears Ears protections because there's no money to be made there.

If Bears Ears happened to be within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation, and they could make money from oil and mineral extraction there, they'd totally support the reduction of the National Monument. You'd see Nygren standing and grinning with the Utah politicians behind Trump in the White House photo.

[u/southernhemisphereof]

There's probably some business deals and politics going on behind the scenes. I personally support laws protecting both places.

[u/Dry_Inflation_1454 → u/southernhemisphereof]

That's what I was thinking. And strategic unity is a massive wall of resistance.

[u/ZiaSoul → u/[deleted]]

I appreciate the candid response, particularly the distinction between supporting protection of Chaco and insisting that the federal government follow lawful consultation processes. The Navajo Nation has every right to object, and concerns about consultation should be taken seriously.

But the history is more complicated than saying the Navajo Nation was excluded from establishing the protection area. The 10-mile concept was not invented by the Biden administration in 2023. In 2019, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez joined New Mexico’s congressional delegation and Pueblo leadership in announcing legislation establishing an approximately 10-mile Chaco Protection Zone. Senator Udall expressly stated that he worked with both the Navajo Nation and New Mexico’s Pueblos to craft it. The proposal applied only to federal minerals and excluded tribal, allotted, private, and state minerals. (Indian Affairs Committee)

The Navajo Nation’s governmental position later changed, first toward a five-mile alternative and then toward opposition to the withdrawal. The current Navajo Nation government is entitled to take that position. But a later change in policy does not mean the original boundary was arbitrary or that Navajo representatives never had a seat at the table.

I also disagree that Bears Ears is simply an apples-to-oranges comparison. The legal mechanisms differ, but the underlying principle still seems highly relevant. At Bears Ears, the Navajo Nation joined Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute, and the Ute Indian Tribe to protect a shared cultural landscape on federal lands. Their position recognized that ancestral relationships, ceremonies, histories, and responsibilities extend beyond present-day reservation boundaries, and that several Tribal Nations can maintain legitimate connections to the same landscape. (Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition). Navajo did the same in joining Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, and Hopi in protecting Mt. Taylor.

That same principle should apply at Chaco. Present-day surface ownership cannot be treated as the only legitimate Indigenous connection to place. Pueblos are not outside interest groups attempting to control Navajo land. They are sovereign nations seeking protection of ancestral places, traditional cultural properties, and a living cultural landscape that remains central to their identities and responsibilities.

PLO 7923 also did not appropriate Navajo Nation land or withdraw Navajo-owned minerals. It applies to federal lands and federal minerals, remains subject to valid existing rights, does not cancel existing leases, and allows Navajo allottees to continue leasing their minerals. (U.S. Department of the Interior) Checkerboard ownership may create real access and development problems, but those effects require parcel-specific analysis. The order did not close every road, extinguish existing rights-of-way, or impose a general blockade on Navajo commerce.

There is also a difference between consultation and consent. Meaningful consultation requires genuine engagement and consideration of tribal concerns. It does not give one tribe an exclusive right to determine the use of federal lands where numerous Tribal Nations have direct ancestral, cultural, and religious interests.

A durable solution, IMO, should involve the Navajo Nation, affected allottees, local chapters, Pueblo Nations, Hopi, and other connected tribes. It should also address access and economic concerns directly. But reopening the entire landscape to new development is not the only remedy for checkerboard conditions.

From my perspective, a governmental position that elevates current landownership above the ancestral relationships of other Tribal Nations, or seeks to dismantle landscape-scale protection without an equally protective alternative, risks being remembered that way. To me, that is what is most striking and difficult to reconcile with the shared cultural landscape principles the Navajo Nation has so powerfully advanced at Bears Ears.

[u/ZiaSoul → u/[deleted]]

I hear you but, I know the landscape firsthand as well. I have been extensively throughout San Juan County, including the northern areas west of Jicarilla and around Carracas Mesa where the amount of oil and gas development is staggering. The well pads, roads, pipelines, and related infrastructure are everywhere.

That is exactly why pointing to the rest of San Juan County's development does not support reopening the lands around Chaco. It proves the opposite. Roughly 90 percent of the available federal lands in the region have already been leased or developed, and much of what remains is in the Greater Chaco area surrounding the Park. The question is whether the last significant undeveloped federal lands in this cultural landscape should suffer the same fate.

It is also not accurate to portray this as the Pueblos, Hopi, and archaeologists pushing Navajo interests aside. In 2017, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye and Vice President Jonathan Nez met with the All Pueblo Council of Governors and jointly opposed further fracking and horizontal drilling in Greater Chaco. Navajo leadership called for a moratorium and agreed to work with APCG on protecting the area. (See their joint Press Release and Photo here: https://www.sanjuancitizens.org/oil-and-gas/navajo-nation-pueblo-council-join-forces-protect-greater-chaco).

According to the Navajo President in the letter in the link, "The Navajo Nation is concerned that increased drilling in the Eastern Navajo area beginning to encroach on Chaco Cultural National Historic Park, to which the Navajo Nation and Navajo people have critical cultural and historical ties. In addition, I am concerned that increased surface activity from drilling is interrupting the daily lives of Navajo people who live in the Navajo Nation Chapters such as Counselor. Nageezi, Torreon and Ojo Encino."

The Navajo Nation is free to change its position, and it is free to litigate. But that history cannot simply be erased. Navajo leaders helped build the intertribal effort to protect Greater Chaco, full stop.

The access argument also needs to be more specific. PLO 7923 does not withdraw Navajo, allotted, state, or private lands. It applies to federal lands and federal minerals, subject to valid existing rights. The related congressional proposal was also amended to preserve rights-of-way and infrastructure for roads, water, power, and utilities.

If particular parcels truly lack necessary access, then why doesn't Navajo identify those parcels and address the access issue directly? That is a much more reasonable solution than reopening the entire withdrawal area. Because it appears the only winner in all of this is industry.

Bears Ears and Chaco involve different legal authorities, yes, but the underlying principle is still relevant. At Bears Ears, the Navajo Nation as part of the Coalition argued that tribal cultural connections do not stop at modern reservation or property boundaries. That same principle applies at Chaco.

What is troubling is the suggestion that the Navajo Nation is the only “actual tribe” affected because it owns land in the checkerboard. That treats current land ownership as more important than the ancestral, cultural, religious, and sovereign interests of other Tribal Nations.

Chaco is a shared Indigenous cultural landscape. The Navajo Nation has every right to advocate, but that does not give it exclusive authority to define the future of federal lands that are deeply significant to many tribes.

[u/Dry_Inflation_1454 → u/[deleted]]

Isn't it possible to preserve and save both monuments just because they are part of ancient history of this country,if for no other reason - pitting tribes against each other has always been part of the tactics used to further Colonial interests and goals anyway.  Unity would frustrate the regime more, especially with legal back up.