While it may feel like we’re constantly on the defensive in this current political climate, SUWA continues to build meaningful relationships with Tribal Nations and broaden the base of support for protecting the redrock. As a result, we’re honored to have received formal resolutions of support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act from the All Pueblo Council of Governors and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe late last year.

On October 21, the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribal Council, the governing body of the Tribe, passed a resolution in support of America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act. Less than two months later, on December 4, the All Pueblo Council of Governors, the collective voice of the 20 Pueblo Nations of New Mexico and Texas, passed a similar resolution. In addition to the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe and All Pueblo Council of Governors, the bill is formally supported by the Zuni Tribe (2024), Hopi Tribe (2023), and Navajo Nation (2021).

“The canyons, mesas, and mountains included in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act are the ancestral homelands of the San Juan Southern Paiute people and comprise one of the most significant cultural landscapes in the United States,” said  San Juan Southern Paiute President Carlene Yellowhair. “These aboriginal lands contain the testimony of Ancestral San Juan Southern Paiute occupation and use for thousands of years, and we are honored to support this longstanding effort to permanently protect the region’s irreplaceable cultural resources, sacred sites, and critical plant and animal species.”

“The protection of cultural landscapes, traditional cultural properties and sacred sites of Pueblo people is paramount to each Pueblo’s cultural preservation now and into the future,” said All Pueblo Council of Governors Chairman Dominic Gachupin. “The lands in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act are aboriginal lands, containing the testimony of Ancestral Puebloan occupation and use for thousands of years, and should be permanently protected.”

America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, which would protect more than 8 million acres of federal public land in Utah, is sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-NM-01); so far this Congress it has 18 cosponsors in the Senate and 65 in the House. Please take a moment to ask your Members of Congress to cosponsor the bill—or thank them for their support!