Abuela Amalia has spent a lifetime walking the chinampas of Xochimilco, carrying with her both the memory of a living lake system and more than six decades of resistance. As a child, she knew clear waters, abundant ecosystems and a way of life sustained by the floating agricultural islands that once fed Mexico City. Over time, she watched that landscape deteriorate under contamination, urban expansion, tourism and neglect — even as emblematic species like the axolotl became global symbols while disappearing from their native habitat.

Rather than surrender to loss, Abuela Amalia has remained at the forefront of efforts to defend and restore the territory. This month, her decades of activism converged at an international summit that brought together chinamperos, Indigenous leaders, scientists, legal experts and policymakers from Mexico and abroad. The gathering marked a new phase in the struggle: an ambitious, collective attempt to rethink how Xochimilco is governed, weaving together ancestral knowledge, science, community action and law to ensure the survival of the last living remnants of the ancient lake system.

Mexico City’s traditional agricultural canals are at risk of disappearing. Meet the activists trying to save them – Read Tracy L. Barnett’s original story for Mexico News Daily HERE.

Read this story in Spanish HERE.

Abuela Amalia axolotl Xochimilco