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.
Shared project relation active · first chinampa and PG Ledger scope forming · no field site activated.
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 (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 partners already observe, what additional record would be useful, who may see it, and how can it strengthen learning without becoming an external certification layer?
Arturo brings research and teaching experience in citizen participation, participatory budgeting and urban governance. Within the shared project, his role is to help connect field 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, evidence cadence and public representation can be established only with their participation and consent.
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.
A shared project-development relation is active around Xochimilco, chinampa stewardship and the first possible PG Ledger scope. No chinampa site, indicator set or observation cadence is active.
The first task is relational and methodological: identify a willing steward-held setting, 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.
These sources establish wider public context. Site-specific statements, project design and field evidence require direct local review.
Land, water and avian observation may all become relevant in a chinampa setting. No protocol is treated as active until its purpose, indicators, workload, consent and local interpretation have been agreed with the participating stewards and partners.
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.