By Ben Neary
NMWF Conservation Director
The U.S. Department of Interior and Jemez Pueblo have agreed to a settlement in the long-running lawsuit over the pueblo’s rights to lands in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
The settlement, approved Oct. 16 by U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland and Jemez Pueblo Gov. Peter Madalena, spells out how the pueblo will exercise its rights to the Banco Bonito, an area in the southwest corner of the preserve.
Lawyers for Jemez Pueblo and the Interior Department have been in closed negotiations over how the pueblo would exercise its rights to the Banco Bonito area since a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals entered a historic ruling upholding the pueblo’s claims to the land in March 2023.
American Indian rights attorneys and advocates have said the appeals court ruling marked the first time a federal court had affirmed Indian aboriginal title to federal lands on the grounds that the federal government never had extinguished that title.
The settlement agreement makes the following provisions:
__ The National Park Service will continue to manage the Banco Bonito as part of the national preserve and that it will remain open to non-pueblo members, including members of other pueblos and tribes.
__ Jemez Pueblo has the right to occupy and use the Banco Bonito area for traditional cultural or religious purposes without federal government authorization. The pueblo’s permitted uses include the hunting and gathering of animals, plants, wood, water and other natural resources for non-commercial purposes.
__ The National Park Service may ban general public access to the Banco Bonito area temporarily at Jemez Pueblo’s request to allow the pueblo to engage in traditional and cultural practices.
__ The National Park Service must consult with the pueblo on activities in the area and the agency agreed not to allow commercial logging, mining or other disruptive activities.
__ The National Park Service won’t proceed with any planned development in the Banco Bonito area without Jemez Pueblo approval.
__ The National Park Service will consult with Jemez Pueblo as well as other interested Indian pueblos and tribes in developing a management plan for national preserve lands outside the Banco Bonito area.
__ The agreement won’t affect the continued public use of the right of way for NM Highway 4, which passes through the Banco Bonito area. Also, nothing in the agreement affects access or activities on neighboring U.S. Forest Service lands.
Attempts to reach lawyers for the pueblo and the U.S. Department of Interior for comment on the settlement weren’t immediately successful.
The Valles Caldera National Preserve holds a collapsed volcanic dome that’s over 10 miles across as well as trout streams, lovely scenery and some of the nation’s best public land elk hunting. Lands in the preserve are sacred to many area Indian pueblos and tribes including Jemez Pueblo.
The federal government acquired the Valles Caldera from private ownership in 2000 and established a trust to manage it. Congress designated the area as a national preserve and turned it over the National Park Service in 2014. At that time, it recognized the rights of Jemez Pueblo and other Indian tribes to access traditional cultural and religious sites and specified that areas of the preserve could be closed to non-Indians.
While American Indian advocates applauded last year’s appeals court ruling, not everyone agreed with it.
Judge Nancy Moritz, a member of the three-judge appeals court panel on the case, wrote a dissenting opinion warning that the court’s affirmation of Jemez Pueblo’s claims could have far-reaching implications.
“There is no reason tribes nationwide could not file similar claims seeking aboriginal title to lands within the 18 other national preserves scattered throughout the United States or, for that matter, to any lands owned or later acquired by the government,” Moritz wrote.
The federal government took ownership of the New Mexico Territory, including the Valles Caldera, from Mexico in 1848. In 1860, the federal government transferred the Valles Caldera to private ownership, where it remained for generations, changing hands only rarely over the following decades. With its lush grass, the area has offered prime grazing and was heavily used for sheep and other livestock as well as timber production throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
The federal government reacquired the property from its last private owners, the Dunigan family of Texas, in 2000.
The government paid over $100 million for just under 100,000 acres. The money came from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which collects revenues from off-shore energy production. The legislation specified that the federal government transfer 5,000 acres of property to Santa Clara Pueblo, allowing the pueblo to safeguard the headwaters of its water supply.
Indian tribes generally had only a limited window of time in the mid-20th century to assert any lingering land claims against the federal government. However, lawyers for Jemez Pueblo asserted that the government’s reacquisition of the Valles Caldera in 2000 after some 140 years in private ownership gave them a new opportunity to assert their ownership claims. The courts agreed.
Jemez Pueblo traces its use and occupation of the land, including the use of many sacred sites and trails, back through the centuries – long before the presence of Europeans in what later became New Mexico. The pueblo traditionally farmed in the Banco Bonito area.
After the federal acquisition in 2000, Jemez Pueblo’s federal case claiming the national preserve lands percolated for years, bouncing between the district court in New Mexico and the federal appeals court in Denver. The pueblo originally claimed rights to the entire preserve but ultimately trimmed its claims in the face of court rulings that neighboring tribes had used the area over the centuries as well.
Other tribes and pueblos, as well as Indian rights activists, have watched the progress of Jemez Pueblo’s claims carefully. Much of the expert testimony and reports about Native American religious beliefs and historic use of the area by Jemez and other pueblos or tribes is not open to the public in the court files.
Many non-Indians value the area as well. It’s popular with anglers, hunters and cross-country skiers. Elk hunts on the Valles Caldera are in great demand, with the number of hunters seeking the coveted tags far exceeding supply.