- Location
- New Mexico
- Current protection
- Gila National Forest, Gila Wilderness, Aldo Leopold Wilderness
- Status
- Advocacy by the New National Parks campaign; no bill
- Tier
- Tier 1 · National Park
- In the book
- Not featured in Undiscovered America
Why should it be a National Park?
The Gila is rough, dry, and enormous, a landscape of ponderosa mesas cut by the canyons of the Gila River and its forks. It holds the last free-flowing river in New Mexico. Mexican gray wolves were reintroduced here in 1998, the only place in the country where that experiment has been run at scale. The Gila Cliff Dwellings, built into caves above the west fork around 1280, preserve the work of the Mogollon people who lived here for a few decades and then left. This is Apache homeland. Geronimo was born near the headwaters of the Gila. The mountains that shelter the wilderness sheltered Apache resistance for decades, and the place names throughout the forest carry that history.
Nothing about the Gila fails the test for a park. What stands in the way is that it is already federal, and agencies do not hand their best country to one another willingly, which is why the only sketches ever drawn here have come from outside Congress. A park would have to be written around what the Gila already carries: the wilderness at its core, the grazing agreements, the water, and the wolf recovery that has come too far to interrupt. Those are terms to negotiate, not reasons to stop.
The history of National Park Campaigns
The Gila Wilderness, designated June 3, 1924 at Aldo Leopold's urging, was the world's first designated wilderness area. No National Park has been proposed for the Gila in Congress; the Sierra Club has advocated a 6.5-million-acre Gila National Park spanning Arizona and New Mexico, but this is advocacy only. The active federal effort is Wild and Scenic River designation for the Gila and San Francisco rivers, introduced by Sens. Heinrich and Luján across several Congresses without enactment.
- Distinct National Park attempts
- 1 (the 1937 Park Service proposal and draft proclamation, withdrawn), plus advocacy since
- Other designation attempts
- 4+ (national forest 1907; cliff dwellings monument 1907; wilderness 1924 and 1964; Wild and Scenic bills 2021–2025)
Sources
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949) and his Gila-era writings
- congress.gov, S. 1476 and H.R. 2903 (119th Congress)
- Gila Wilderness centennial materials (2024), Gila National Forest
- Sierra Club, 'A Modest Proposal: We Need More National Parks'
- National Park Service, Suggested Areas Resumes (1957)
- Michael Kellett, "A Modest Proposal: We Need More National Parks," Sierra (August 17, 2021)
- 1907
Gila National Forest established.
- November 16, 1907
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument proclaimed.
- June 3, 1924
The Forest Service designates the Gila Wilderness, roughly 755,000 acres, the first designated wilderness in the world, at Aldo Leopold's urging.
- October 1937
A Park Service Region Three report favors a 654,000-acre National Park absorbing Gila Cliff Dwellings; a draft proclamation is prepared, cleared by the Geological Survey, and then withdrawn.
- 1964
The Wilderness Act gives statutory protection to the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wildernesses.
- 1998
Mexican gray wolves reintroduced to the Blue Range and Gila country.
- 2021–2025
M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers Act introduced repeatedly (S. 3129 in the 117th; S. 776 and H.R. 1611 in the 118th; S. 1476 and H.R. 2903 in the 119th, April 10, 2025). Reported by committee twice; never enacted.
- Ongoing
Sierra Club advocacy for a 6.5-million-acre Gila National Park; no bill has been introduced.
- August 17, 2021
The New National Parks campaign proposes a 6.5-million-acre Gila National Park in Arizona and New Mexico, built around the Gila Wilderness.