This three-year multimedia project tells the story of one of Mexico’s most important traditional farming communities, revealing their rich culture, unique farming ecosystem, and spectacular wetland home, while highlighting their complex struggle for survival.

The creation of this project was made possible thanks to the guidance and generosity of the Chinampero community, and with the help of numerous people in front of the camera and working behind the scenes.

PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS

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Introduction

Through the mist that forms each dawn under cold dark blue skies we navigated our way between black overhanging trees towards a lagoon in the distance. My guides, chinampero farmers Mixtli Barrera Fernandez and her father Felipe paddled their kayak gently towards the small sacred island in its center. Gathering on its grassy surface and surrounded by plump cactus we looked east towards the revered Popocatépetl ‘Smoking Mountain’, as little clouds of white gas floated from its snow capped summit crater, backlit gold by the rising sun. It felt like we were re-enacting what Mixtli’s ancestors have done since before even the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico, and in some ways that not much has changed. The reality though is that in recent times, almost everything has.

We were in the heart of the Chinampas, a vast network of man made islands and canals located in southeast Mexico City. These ‘Floating Gardens’ were first built in the shallows and marshland of Lake Xochimilco, one of several interconnected lakes that once filled the valley now covered by the capital. Maintained to this day by predominantly traditional farmers known as chinamperos, many of whom still speak the Aztec language of Náhuatl, this UNESCO world heritage site is recognised as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System and, together with the ecological reserve to its north, a RAMSAR Wetland of International Importance under the Mexican government’s protection.

The agroecology practiced here is highly productive, with up to seven harvests a year supplying thousands of tons of food annually to markets across the city. And with only a fraction of the possible 21,000 total chinampas currently operating, it is estimated if the area was restored and properly managed it could provide millions of residents of Mexico City with organic produce.

Chinampas also offer solutions for dealing with limited resources across a warming and increasingly unstable planet, demonstrating how a productive, sustainable, and organic polyculture can be implemented wherever people live close to rivers, lakes, or swampland. From major urban environments to small rural locations, the benefits of raised field systems like these are significant. They increase food security, providing high yield and diverse crops, and even livestock, while eliminating food miles and the use of polluting agrochemicals and plastics.

For a hot and crowded megacity such as Mexico’s capital, the chinampas and wetland now serve as an increasingly vital reservoir of water that replenishes the faltering underground aquifers that have almost run dry, while cooling the city streets above by an estimated 2C.

They also host rich ecosystems in an area where the natural environment has been greatly reduced, and every hectare of chinampa sequesters 110 tons of carbon annually.

Despite all this, the Chinampería (as it is collectively known) faces an uncertain future. Everything from its culture, farming, and biodiversity, to the wetland it is symbiotically linked to is under threat. The number of chinamperos has dwindled as youngsters move into a city slowly enveloping their land. Natural springs that once filled the canals with drinkable water have been diverted to upmarket neighborhoods downtown and replaced by gray water from treatment plants, sewage from illegal housing, and toxic pesticides, chemicals, and plastic waste from modern industrial farming and floriculture practices often brought in by farmers from other regions.

Many of these problems stem from apathy or derision towards rural communities from society. And for many people the chinampas have become just a novelty tourist destination, somewhere to visit on weekends to drink and party while cruising on the canals. Or they come simply for space the city no longer has for recreation, like the football pitches being built over less profitable chinampas.

However, a passionate new generation of farmers and scientists are working towards its future. Implementing conservation and rehabilitation projects, developing responsible eco-tourism, and combining resources, knowledge, and technology to reach more quality conscious customers.

Another important development has been the founding of the first chinampa school teaching Agroecology, Culture and History, Cuisine, and science backed Traditional Medicine. The farming collective behind it hope the broad curriculum provided by the Escuela Chinampera Tlamachtiloyan Chinampaneca will teach students not simply to be farmers, but help them become chinamperos and the next guardians of the Chinampería.

The more I discovered about the Chinamperos’ story, the more fascinating and complex it became. And so I found myself heading to Xochimilco, hoping to create a portrait of this unique landscape and the people trying to protect it. It was an opportunity to learn about a community working in balance with nature for more than a thousand years and glimpse into its past. When I arrived the question I found myself asking the most was, what will it look like in the future?

Please get in touch if you would like to hear more about this project.