New Mexico Wilderness Act of 1980, Public Law 96-550, is a U.S. federal law that authorized the establishment of a number of designated Wilderness Areas on National Forest land in New Mexico. The law also added additional lands to four existing Wilderness Areas in New Mexico, and named several Forest areas for study as potential Wilderness Areas. The law also created two new National Park Service units, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Salinas National Monument, from existing NPS lands. By means of this law approximately 400,000 acres of forest land were designated as Wilderness Areas, as described by the Wilderness Act of 1964, and approximately 75,000 additional acres were designated as Wilderness Study Areas for possible future inclusion in the Wilderness program.
