FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rodeo, NM — The Chiricahua Regional Council, New Mexico Wild, and other regional groups are raising concerns that a new proposed copper mine in the Peloncillo mountain range, straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border in Cochise and Hidalgo counties, would have irreversible consequences for the range’s value as a wildlife corridor.
The company, Curiosity Exploration LLC, has filed an exploratory permit application with the State of New Mexico and sent a Notice of Intent to begin exploratory mining to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The vast majority of the 430 lode claims in project area, totaling about 8,800 acres, are on BLM land. This comes on the heels of another mineral exploration proposal earlier this year in a different part of the range that similarly sparked fierce backlash from NGOs and community members. That project has since been abandoned.
As the primary cross-border habitat connection between the Sierra Madre Occidental range in Mexico and southern Rocky Mountains of the United States, the Peloncillo range is considered one of the most important wildlife corridors in the Southwest and is a critical linkage in the “Western Wildway” that connect Meso-America to the Brooks Range in Alaska.
The proposed mine, just south of Interstate-10, sits directly adjacent to the location that the State of New Mexico has already identified as a priority wildlife corridor area in its 2022 New Mexico Wildlife Corridors Action Plan. The plan calls for the eventual construction of a highway overpass to mitigate impacts to species like the desert big horn sheep that travel through the range. Conservation groups are raising alarm that mining activity at the same location would wholly undermine this possibility and forever harm the range’s long-understood value as a continentally important linkage for a vast array of species.
Last week, many of these groups alongside local business owners and community members sent a letter to the BLM urging the agency not to accept the company’s Notice of Intent and instead to require a higher level of scrutiny, public participation, and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review.
“This is now the second mining proposal in the Peloncillos in just a matter of months,” said Luke Koenig, a community organizer for New Mexico Wild. “Other impacts to the Peloncillos, like the Border Wall and I-10, can be mitigated one day and might not be as permanent. But once you turn a portion of one of the West’s most important wildlife corridors into a giant hole in the ground, you’ll never get it back. The rapid uptick in mining proposals we are currently witnessing is needlessly putting many of our most important ecosystems at risk. This is a perfect example of that.”
“Steins Pass is the front door to New Mexico,” said local resident and Chiricahua Regional Council President Dirk Sigler. Continuing, “travelers driving I-10 east from Arizona pass through it. It’s also a stepping stone along an ancient pathway that’s been used by wildlife for millennia. We’re at a crossroads, literally and figuratively. On one path, we choose to protect the wildlife and their corridor, on the other we choose to blow the mountains apart for their minerals. What would you rather see at your doorstep—a Desert Big Horn sheep or an open pit mine?”
“It is time for our extractive history to come to an end. We must embrace our interconnectedness and recognize that the choices we make today will shape not only the future of our wildlife and natural landscapes, but the lives of generations yet to come,” said Mary Whitehouse, Rodeo NM resident and co-founder of the Portal, AZ-Rodeo, NM-area Women’s Action Collective. “By honoring the land, respecting the wildlife, and understanding our responsibility as stewards of this remarkable place, we strengthen not only our environment, but our families, our communities, and our shared future. We must not allow new mining in the Peloncillos.”
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