Mexico City, Mexico
Xochimilco is a centuries-old agroecological, cultural and commons system under severe ecological and land-use pressure. The shared project asks whether steward-held field documentation can strengthen the connection between public decisions, local practice and living outcomes.
Arturo Flores López and Spiralweb have agreed the shared inquiry ground. The first locally steward-held field scope, direct chinampa relationships and operating route are now forming.
The horizon supports a four-to-six-month locally anchored inquiry: Arturo at approximately 0.15–0.25 FTE, a Spanish-speaking locally based research role at approximately 0.75–1.0 FTE, paid contributions from chinampa stewards and other local participants, field costs, workshops, translation, Spiralweb knowledge stewardship and contingency.
Next return: host or contract route, co-inquirers, first shared question, local budget, ethics and data agreement, followed by the decision that opens the first bounded phase.
The place
Xochimilco preserves a living chinampa landscape within the former lake system of the Valley of Mexico. UNESCO describes it as the surviving reminder of traditional pre-Hispanic land use in the basin and identifies groundwater extraction, abandonment, development pressure and contamination among the threats to the system.
The chinampa system is also recognised by FAO as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System: a productive wetland-agriculture tradition sustained through chinampera knowledge, canals, raised fields, agrobiodiversity and social organisation. These recognitions establish public context; they do not define the condition of a particular chinampa or confer authority over local stewards.
The lake system of Ejidos de Xochimilco and San Gregorio Atlapulco is also recognised as a Ramsar wetland. Mexico City's environmental authority reported a protected wetland area of 2,657 hectares in 2025.
The shared project begins from the fact that Xochimilco contains living practices, severe pressures, multiple institutions and different local realities. It does not reduce the place to a single collapse narrative.
The axolotl and the living conditions of Xochimilco
The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is endemic to the Xochimilco lake system and critically endangered in the wild. Its condition is connected to water quality, habitat, invasive species and the wider functioning of the wetland. It can therefore contribute to ecological interpretation, but no single species is treated as a complete verdict on the whole system.
UNAM's current conservation work explicitly links axolotl habitat rehabilitation, protection of local wildlife and the strengthening of chinampera agricultural practices. Existing chinampa-refuge work is a locally and scientifically held practice from which the shared project may learn. Spiralweb does not claim to have caused it, to own it or to define its evidence in advance.
The relevant question for a future PG Ledger is practical: what do chinampa stewards and conservation practitioners already observe, what additional record would be useful, who may see it, and how can it strengthen learning without becoming an external certification layer?
Project relation
Dr. Arturo Flores López, of Universidad Anáhuac México's Faculty of Global Studies, is part of the project-development relation. His research and teaching experience includes citizen participation, participatory budgeting and urban governance.
Within the preparatory work, his role is to help connect questions in Xochimilco with governance research and institutional dialogue. This relation does not substitute for direct participation by chinampa stewards, conservation practitioners or other locally authorised actors. A field scope, recording rhythm and public representation can be established only with their participation, consent and available capacity.
A possible governance connection to test
Participatory budgeting can express public priorities and allocate resources. Its design, implementation and follow-through vary across programmes. A recurring weakness in many participatory systems is the absence of a consistent, locally held feedback layer showing what happens after a decision is funded.
The shared project will explore whether this connection is useful in one bounded chinampa context. It does not assume that PG Ledger is the missing link in all participatory budgeting systems.
What is being prepared here
Arturo and Spiralweb have agreed the shared inquiry ground around Xochimilco, chinampa stewardship, field documentation and a possible PG Ledger scope. The present work is to open direct co-creation with chinampa stewards and other locally rooted participants, and to shape the first bounded question, site relationship and observation practice with them.
The present task is to shape a project agreement and identify a willing steward-held setting; then understand what is already documented, agree the question being investigated, distinguish public from restricted information, and decide whether a bounded first record would add value.
A later institutional strand may examine how field-held evidence relates to participatory budgeting and urban governance research. That argument should grow from an actual locally reviewed process rather than precede it.
The PG Ledger is therefore being explored here as one possible form of shared memory. It is not presented as an instrument for every commons, and it does not transfer authority from chinampa stewards to Spiralweb, researchers, funders or public institutions.
Public context and sources
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Xochimilco's chinampa landscape, its heritage value and documented pressures.
- FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems — the living chinampa agricultural system, knowledge, biodiversity and social organisation.
- Mexico City SEDEMA — current public context for the Ramsar wetland and conservation activity.
- UNAM Institute of Biology — current axolotl habitat rehabilitation and support for chinampera practice.
These sources establish wider public context. Site-specific statements, project design and field evidence require direct local review.
Preparing — shared project development and local scope formation
A first record begins only after a willing steward-held setting, question, consent structure and locally holdable recording rhythm are agreed
Possible observation domains — to be assessed locally
Land and cultivation Water and hydrology Avian and habitat observationLand, water and avian observation may all become relevant in a chinampa setting. No protocol, fixed indicator set or shared recording rhythm is active; any shared method must first have a clear purpose, manageable workload, consent and locally held interpretation.
Page status: shared project draft. Arturo and any participating chinampa stewards should review the local framing before a field cycle or evidence claim is presented as active.