A community celebration was held in honor of the Bureau of Land Management’s mid-April decision to protect the Buffalo Tract, an area over 4,000 acres spanning through Placitas.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland signed Public Land Order 7940, preventing new claims to mining, mineral sales and oil and gas leases for the next 50 years.
US Senator Martin Heinrich attended the event.
He said that he has been working on securing this deal with members of the community and the Santa Ana and San Felipe Pueblos since 2009.
He said this achievement set an example for communities trying to conserve areas.
“It sets a great example because it sends the message to communities that you really can rally together and have your voices heard. It also creates some really great anchors within the wildlife corridor that Governor Armijo from Santa Ana was talking about because given the fractionated land ownership of this area, you are not going to do that all at once."
The Senator recently passed legislation banning Russian uranium and mentioned mining for the ore in New Mexico; he was asked how to choose which areas we mine versus what areas we protect.
“I think one of the things that would allow us to do a better job balancing those issues is updating the 1872 mining law because right now it's a very permissive law and there is no structure to create the kind of royalties that would actually buy more community acceptance of well conducted mining. So I do think that updating that law is an important part of how you do that.”
