Diné hope to include private land in Mount Taylor pact

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Resources Committee has approved an amended cooperative agreement among the Navajo Nation and the pueblos of Acoma, Laguna and Zuni to pursue an application for the permanent classification of Mount Taylor as a Traditional Cultural Property.

A previous agreement approved by Resources was tabled by the Intergovernmental Relations Committee and sent back to Resources for modifications, which included removing the Hopi Tribe as a participant.

The New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee last year granted a one-year emergency listing of a portion of Mount Taylor which included the summit and mesa tops at an 8,000 foot elevation contour line, including Horace Mesa at 7,300 feet.

The current emergency designation boundary, as well as the proposed permanent nomination boundary, does not include privately held land, as provided by the New Mexico Cultural Properties Act.

The goal of the nominating tribes is to protect the unimpaired natural and cultural landscape of Mount Taylor by having it designated a Traditional Cultural Property on the New Mexico Register of Cultural Properties. One aspect of the process is determining a proposed boundary.

The Navajo Nation has agreed to produce all maps required for the application, at cost. According to the cooperative agreement, no tribe will bear an unreasonable portion of the costs incurred as part of the nomination.

The Navajo Nation approved the Diné Resources Protection Act in 2005, effectively banning uranium mining and milling on the Navajo Nation, however, the ban does not extend to sacred sites such as Mount Taylor, or Tsoodzil, the sacred mountain to the south.

“Mount Taylor is a cultural resource to us and we will do all we can to protect that area and prevent any development that encroaches on our culture,” Sherrick Roanhorse of Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly’s office said last week.

“It’s our hope that we can get Mount Taylor and the surrounding area designated as a Traditional Cultural Property. It’s important to us, it’s important to the Navajo people. For the pueblos, it’s important to their people.

Mount Taylor is one of the sources of our prayers and our songs.”

The agreement spells out what each tribe is charged to do in the application process. A part of that is sharing resources to pay for some of the costs associated with the application, including GIS mapping.

“The pueblos don’t have the capacity to create maps, but our Natural Resource department has the capacity to create these maps with our technology. We’re trying to save as much money as we can on our part as the Navajo government,” Roanhorse said.

“The biggest hurdle before us right now is a lot of the tribes are facing budget shortfalls. Hopi was a partner with us, but Hopi also is having its own political challenges. We’re doing the best we can to work with what we have.”

The proposed cooperative agreement is expected to go back to the Intergovernmental Relations Committee this week for approval.

“I’m hoping they will move forward on it. Our goal is to have an application out by the end of next month. We’re really trying to push this forward. The cooperative agreement will help,” Roanhorse said.

The Pueblo of Acoma serves as project coordinator and has retained the Chestnut Law Firm to prepare the application for nomination.