You don’t have to be Indigenous, a nature lover, a hiker, or an astronomer to see the clear value in protecting Chaco Canyon as a forward-looking economic imperative. By preserving Public Land Order 7923, New Mexico positions itself to lead in quantum innovation, space tech, and sustainable ESG (Environmental, Social, & Governance) capital. The optics of reverting to legacy oil, gas, and mineral extraction would signal to the rest of the world that America cannot keep up with innovation while everyone else has moved on.I expressed how they were going to post the segment later and I’d love to hear it, because I don’t remember what I said. I gave the table of folks a super duper abbreviated synopsis of what the discussion centered around so that everyone could at least have the context of this chat.

Chaco Canyon is like North America’s ancient version of the Roman Colosseum or NASA. Actually, think of it like if the Colosseum and NASA had a baby. 

More than 1000 years ago, tucked away in the high desert of northwestern New Mexico, Ancestral Puebloan people built multi-story stone complexes called “Great Houses” that were so big, they weren’t surpassed in size in the States until the 19th century. These Great Houses aligned perfectly to the sun, moon, and 18.6-year lunar cycles, and they did it without metal tools, horses, wheels, or telescopes. 

When people today think about innovation, they’ll think of tech bros in Silicon Valley. But long before Silicon Valley (tech) or Cape Canaveral (space), North America had Chaco Canyon as its own epicenter of advanced science and engineering.

These massive stone buildings were precision timepieces engineered to track the movements of the sun, moon, and stars across decades-long celestial cycles. Fast forward to today and Chaco remains one of the premier dark-sky preserves on Earth; it’s a physical bridge connecting ancient scientific genius to New Mexico’s modern leadership in quantum computing and space innovation.

In June 2023, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued Public Land Order 7923 (PLO 7923). This policy established a 20-year moratorium on new federal mineral and energy leasing within a 10-mile protective radius surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park; a 10-mile radius might sound small, but this works out to be about 336400 acres of public land.

The order was designed to safeguard thousands of unexcavated Indigenous cultural sites, fragile desert ecosystems, and the region’s pristine dark skies from industrial encroachment.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has indicated interest in taking away PLO 7923 under the argument that it could carry economic benefit by letting industrial oil, gas, and mineral extraction take place on these hundreds of thousands of acres.

While conversations around Chaco Canyon often focus on historical preservation, maintaining PLO 7923 is equally vital for New Mexico’s future-proof economic strategy:

• Market Stability over Policy Volatility: Constant regulatory swings around public lands create uncertainty for investors. Leaving the 20-year moratorium intact signals predictable, long-term policy stability to modern capital markets.
• Mitigating ESG & Reputational Risk: Institutional investors and venture capital firms increasingly screen projects for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) liability. Industrializing a UNESCO World Heritage buffer zone exposes developments to severe reputational pushback and legal friction.
• Securing High-Growth Sectors: Stripping the buffer zone harms New Mexico’s rapidly growing astrotourism and eco-tourism economies, while degrading the pristine atmospheric conditions needed for advanced astronomical study, aerospace testing, and quantum technologies.
• Courage to Think Differently for True Quantum Dominance: No global entity has an unchallenged superiority on quantum computing yet. In order to dominate this industry, the winner will be the one who figures out sustainable quantum computing–not just in the application, but in the entire end-to-end pipeline. Currently, mineral mining for semiconductors (chips) depends on a globally-distributed supply chain. Pivoting away from typical extraction methods of yesteryear encourages the kind of ingenuity, creativity, imagination, and collaboration required to develop new methods.

Personally, I believe the sudden interest in brute forcing rollbacks stems from a misguided assumption that doing something the way we have always done it is the only option for American innovation–especially when everything is described as a “race” (like our “quantum race”). 

We all know the story of the tortoise and the hare (rabbit), and yet doing things the right way gets thrown out the window in favor of the illusion of speed. 

People who are used to the private equity way of doing business–speed extract what you can, deplete it, claim the depreciation on your taxes, then close it and move on–they underestimate the vision we have for ourselves in New Mexico. They think we’re turning down profits when we’re actually playing the long game–like the multi-decade lunar cycle–to build things that last.

Innovation at scale requires creativity, imagination, and collaboration. Protecting PLO 7923 does not stop economic growth; my view is that protecting PLO 7923 actually sets us up for a much bigger future on the world stage–we’re choosing the right kind of sustainable, double bottom line growth for New Mexico and it’s a long bet on ourselves.

Protecting PLO 7923 does not stop economic growth; my view is that protecting PLO 7923 actually sets us up for a much bigger future on the world stage–we’re choosing the right kind of sustainable, double bottom line growth for New Mexico and it’s a long bet on ourselves.

Long before modern technology, Chaco Canyon was an early beacon of scientific genius, engineered with architectural precision to track the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. If we want to invest in America’s workforce development for Space Force, space technology, quantum, national security, and agriculture…it starts by protecting Chaco Canyon, which will be one of the last places in the world where the skies for celestial study by everyday people is possible.

Keep PLO 7923 as-is. Maintain the 20-year moratorium to protect Chaco Canyon and drive economic innovation:
• Secures NM’s future as a tech & ESG leader
• Protects 336k-acre buffer for astrotourism & eco-tourism
• Incentivizes quantum & space innovation

What makes Chaco Canyon special is that it serves as a reminder of farming harmony and agricultural excellence in the dry desert at high elevations (yes, even higher than Denver!). The region’s heritage is rooted in advanced science long before modern instruments existed.

Reverting to legacy extraction models around sacred heritage sites is both backward-looking and bad for the kind of business innovation that the United States needs to figure out in order to play catch up with a world that is gradually moving on without us. Maintaining the 20-year moratorium provides market stability while aligning resource management with modern, future-proof capital standards. Long-term market growth depends on innovation, not environmental degradation. Rescinding the protective buffer exposes investors to unnecessary ESG liability and reputational risk globally. Leaving the existing moratorium in place signals true market stability to modern institutional capital.

Preserving Public Land Order 7923 to protect the 10-mile radius around Chaco Canyon…is a vote of confidence for American innovation that shows the world we have what it takes to develop our own renewable energy source that they can’t take away.