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SANTA FE, N.M. — About 200 environmental, tribal and community activists protested Wednesday in Santa Fe against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s latest lease sale for oil and gas development on public lands in New Mexico.

The two-day online auction, which began Wednesday and ends today, will award more than 100 parcels of land for development on some 87,000 acres in northwestern and southeastern New Mexico.

Demonstrators were protesting the sale of leases in areas around Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Christina M. Castro, second from right, and her daughter Maize Jade Harris, 5, Jemez and Taos Pueblo, along with around 200 other people, protest Wednesday in front of the BLM offices south of Santa Fe. Several organizations are protesting against the BLM auctioning off 89,000 acres of public land, including land in the Chaco Canyon area, for oil and gas extraction. (Eddie Moore/Journal)