it was a real food paradise this still
is one of the best examples of how
humans can thrive with nature it's all
right there it's still right there this
is the black gold of sochi mirco this is
like some of the best soil i've ever
held in my life
it's amazing that that exists in the
heart of mexico city
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we are here in mexico city to see an
ancient agricultural system that is
still productive today and we're here to
see is this the most productive
agricultural system in history
and what can we learn from this system
to help us face the great challenges
that we face in this day
[Music]
the basin of mexico city is located at a
high elevation in the south of the
country the basin used to be covered by
five lakes and it was on an island in
one of these lakes that the aztecs built
their legendary capital city
tenochtitlan
even before the aztecs agriculture had
taken a unique form here in order to
grow food in this flooded landscape an
innovative form of agriculture was
developed where land was recovered for
farming by building artificial islands
and peninsulas that are known as the
chinampas these chinampas covered the
lakes and provided food for the capital
city in a maze of canals and raised
gardens
when the spanish conquered tenochtitlan
in 1521 they began to systematically
destroy the city and the intricate
waterworks that included the chinampas
mexico city grew over the ruins of
tenochtitlan and has steadily expanded
over the last 500 years draining and
covering the lakes and paving over the
chinampas that once covered the wet
valley this vast ancient farming system
has been all but erased from history
except for one special area
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so these are the chinampas also known as
the floating gardens of sochimilco and
they're still in use
500 years after the fall of the aztec
empire so why do we think this could be
the most fertile agricultural system in
history
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it was a real food paradise because
you plant on land
you can
fish
and then you can hunt
this man-made intervention created more
biodiversity so that everyone thrived
together
i mean i have a friend from here
that says we have a
thousand year reservoir of nutrients and
minerals
we've got here about 11 of organic
matter wow
this is the
the black gold of sochi milko
that's the color you want
this is like some of the best soil i've
ever held in my life right i mean this
is like
the foundation of the chinampas right
here yeah this is all man-made
the origin of this soil is the sediments
that we have on the bottom of the lake
mixed with plants with roots with trees
so that it becomes
not only black but it has the right
texture
you don't need to water this these
plants
you can just put the seeds in and then
you cut these blocks and you don't water
for a month it's just like a giant
sponge yeah and as long as we keep it
covered
then it will it will stay that way
because mexico city is a giant basin
there's no outlet for all the sediment
that washes down from the mountains this
has gone on for millennia and so all the
soil and debris from this large mountain
range settled into the lakes providing
extremely fertile materials for
constructing the chinampas
because of this geography there's a deep
and long-lasting reservoir of fertility
that formed the basis of food production
for ancient civilizations
this is a very shallow lake
and because it's so shallow it was easy
enough
to pull more out of the canal
and to put it in this rectangle
[Music]
the chinampas were constructed by
creating a perimeter of willow stakes
known as
they were anchored to the bottom of the
lake
reeds were then woven around the
framework of the stakes to create a
container enclosed on four sides
into this container was placed brush
aquatic plants weeds and whatever else
was available making a big sponge of
organic material
then using buckets or long shovels the
lake mud was scooped out and placed in a
layer over the organic material
more organic material and more mud could
be added as needed to get the chinampa
to the desired height
over time the organic material broke
down the whole mass became a body of
soil that could then be planted
the aguajote willow stakes would then
sprout and grow roots to shore up the
perimeter of the chinampa and more trees
were planted as needed the chinampa
became stable and many crops could be
continually planted
this chinamp in particular
is the one that looks like
how it was originally designed it
resembles the most the original design
so we can
picture that this ginapa could be worked
by one person
i am sure that the chinampa in its
origin
is an agroforestry system
always surrounded by trees
as we say this is an agriculture based
more on process than on inputs
the original design of the chinampa the
china is always surrounded by water and
we have all these trees the the willows
that are called our hotes they help to
keep the chin up in place
if you dig one meter and a half you will
find the lake
for trees it's it's a very good idea
they can easily reach down a meter and a
half
and then get the water from there
that way it's also like pumping water to
the system no because
most of the content of this leaf is
water
and once we put it down
it's like a way of irrigating by
covering that's a really cool image so
the trees are actually pumping this
water into their leaves and organic
matter which you then add to the soil
which then with the increased organic
matter in the soil you actually have
better water retention and you have to
do less irrigation
exactly yeah trees are
harvesting water for us and the sunlight
and then we have different sizes of
canals
primary secondary and tertiary
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the traditional chinampas are configured
as long rectangles surrounded by water
and were not built over 12 meters or 40
feet wide so all sides of the chinampa
had easy access to water for irrigation
and boat transport of crops soil and
organic matter
it is also really important for
chinampas to be surrounded by water
because
during the rainy season all the salt
that is naturally in the soil
can run off
some people
in order to have more land they have
filled up canals and
and cut down trees
but knowingly or without knowing they
are disrupting the original design that
in my opinion is it's perfect
there are three canal types the primary
canals which are big enough for small
barges for transporting lake mud and
crop residues the secondary canals are
size for canoes and then the tertiary
canals are just small channels big
enough to irrigate from but too small
for boats
we are using those smaller canals to
start to reintroduce
all those endemic species here
well the most
emblematic species is the the astrologe
it's like a salamander it's an amphibian
astrolotus
as biologists say they are bio
indicators know that the ecosystem is
healthy right
you have to have all the like all the
food chain
the tertiary canals are important to
preserving the native ecosystem and
creating habitat for the endangered
asteroidal salamanders as well as other
aquatic species that are threatened by
the introduced tilapia and carp
the tertiary canals are also where
they're pulling out water for irrigation
so there's concern about the water
purity their strategy has been the
construction of biofilters at the ends
of these tertiary canals the biofilters
make it so the water needs to filter
through a barrier of gravel that's
planted with reeds known for their water
filtering qualities
the tertiary canals then become
miniature bioreserves where the
salamanders frogs and crustaceans can be
protected from the tilapia
the ashelitals are particularly
threatened and are considered a very
special species both in their role in
aztec religion is a form of one of their
gods and their capacity to regenerate
almost any part of their body they've
been extensively studied in medical
research so the loss of osteological
genetic diversity is not only a loss of
biology and culture but of science as
well
for these reasons the ascelotal is the
totem species of the chinampas and the
success of lucio's project and the
health of the chinampas can be judged by
the proliferation of the ashiloto
salamander
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the chinampas now we have 2200 hectares
of chinampas
when we used to have more than
a hundred thousand
since the spanish conquest the water
management is basically a history of bad
decisions
the aztecs were experts in in water
management in knowing how to
control the levels of each lake
the spaniards really what they did was
start to
divert canals dry the lakes dry the the
rivers
basically destroying the the water
system
we used to have five great lakes and now
we have water problems no
as the city grew the water bodies shrank
water treatment plants now supply all
the water to the lake
the quality of the treatment plants is
it's more than good enough for for
irrigation
the problem in sochi milk is more
300 hectares have been urbanized and
they
don't have a sewage system
so all that water goes into the
chinampas
and mostly the pathogens are of concern
the water also from the sochi milk
aquifer
is being used at a faster rate than it's
been recovered
so now with the water issues and the
pollution of the people that have
started living in the chinampas are
really endangering the the system
so these chinampas are a living thread
that weaves together
past and present
this whole thing was a giant lake bed
these chinampas were created and then
the city paved it all over and here we
are in the final vestiges the last part
of this magnificent massive system that
is still intact this day
arcatierra is a project that links
farmers with people in the city
by means of agriculture and then we also
have
rural tourism especially in sochimilco
where we invite people to go to the
chinampas
for us it's really supporting a network
of good farming and a better food system
architera has made enormous progress in
having the cultural and biological value
of the chinampas recognized they're
applying permaculture and ecological
design principles to an ancient system
with modern problems and are gaining
real momentum
what we would like to promote is farming
as a way of regeneration
of landscape of food of culture of
social relations and also to try to
rehabilitate the water systems that used
to be in mexico city taking ancient
knowledge from the
people that understood this environment
very well
and also backing all that information
with with scientific knowledge with
researchers from universities
it's not only for farming
we can hear all the birds there are
amphibians crustaceans there's many
different animals and plants that live
here
and if we go towards an agroforestry
system there's gonna be more life
and we're gonna sequester more carbon
and it's gonna be more beautiful
so
the challenge is to make it profitable
very productive and that more people can
can join
so what do we have to learn from this
system that can be applied elsewhere
this is a pattern that can be replicated
in any wet swampy area
lower the low areas for deep water and
raise islands for cultivation we can
create more production and diversity on
these wet sites this is a resilient
strategy that has withstood the test of
time and we are standing here
on living proof of that
people say that this is you know the
most productive
agricultural system in history
what are your thoughts on that
i don't know if it's the most but
definitely on the top list
and that is because
the people that lived here a thousand
years ago
had this great sensibility
and combined you know like human
ingenuity
with natural power the sun the water the
nutrients the minerals
in my opinion this
still is one of the best examples of how
humans can
thrive with nature can co-create
this is the most productive system in
mesoamerica
all year round
as long as you give back enough
you will have
plenty of production
i knew about the chinampas like whoa the
chinampas of mexico city that's
something i've heard about from my early
studies in permaculture but i've got to
say actually my expectations have been
surpassed
i didn't realize
the extent of what the arca tierra
project was accomplishing there i didn't
realize that they were actually already
deep into integrating more contemporary
ecological practices like syntropic
agriculture and agroforestry i didn't
realize how far into this process they
were and that they'd already kind of
redesigned the chinampas and created
habitat and created biofilters for the
water supply
and had shared so deeply with so many
people with their their public relations
campaigns and all of the events that
they host there
connecting the population of mexico city
right into the heart of the chinampas
so i'm super impressed with with lucio
and with the work of arka tierra and
also just
sinking into
the beauty of the chinampas just
spending a couple days going on the boat
and looking around the birds and the
plants and the people
it's amazing
that that exists in the heart of mexico
city
there's not a lot of other places in the
world that you go the ancient system is
still intact and is is being actually
improved in this way
it's all right there it's still right
there for us to learn from and
experience
everywhere we go here we see the legacy
of ancient cultures that have survived
here for millennia off of the land and
we have a lot to learn from them
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is
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oh