The US Interior Department will defer oil and gas lease sales in a portion of the San Juan basin of New Mexico for one year following opposition from state lawmakers and Native American groups, writes Caroline Evans.

The department will use the time to develop a draft resource management plan that includes suggestions from tribal leaders and state legislators, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said last week.

The one-year deferral will also allow the US Congress to consider legislation to withdraw federal lands around Chaco Canyon from mineral development.

The leases are situated near the Chaco Culture National Heritage Park, and tribal and environmental groups have long fought to protect the lands surrounding the park from oil and gas activity.

"The region holds deep meaning to New Mexico's Pueblos, whose history and traditional knowledge live on in its thousands of ancestral sites, and to the Navajo Nation, whose lands and communities surround Chaco Culture National Historical Park," New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, who co-sponsored the bill to withdraw the lands from leasing, said.

The leases affected lie within a 10-mile (16-kilometre) perimeter outlined by Heinrich's bill.

They were supposed to be put up for auction in March, but the Interior's Bureau of Land Management postponed the sale following opposition from tribal groups, environmental activists and lawmakers including Heinrich.

Bernhardt and Heinrich announced the latest decisions after Bernhardt visited the area at Heinrich's invitation.

"I walked away with a greater sense of appreciation of the magnificent site managed by the National Park Service and a better understanding of the of tribal leaders’ views of its cultural significance," Bernhardt said.

"We will take appropriate action to defer leasing within the 10 mile buffer during the next year, and we will respect the role of Congress under the property clause of the constitution to determine how particular lands held by the federal government should be managed."

Weekly

US to defer plan for San Juan lease sales