How Chinampas are Working with Nature

A question here is from Chloe. "How are chinampas working with nature? The Aztecs created all of it and imposed the canals on the landscape to manipulate nature. Is this even permaculture? What am I missing?" Well Chloe, chinampas have been put in all over the world it's not just in Mexico and the Aztecs. But the original chinampas in Mexico City were on top of a swamp, alright a shallow lake actually with swampy edges. And they filled in the lake with organic matter and stumps and raised the water level to create an edge effect a little bit like the deltas and tributaries at the mouth of a river. So what they created was an imitation of nature's most abundant systems the edge systems of the tropical mangroves and river deltas of the world. So where a river comes down to the ocean you have this big delta and that is the most productive ecosystem, natural system on the planet. So what they did was, they intensified the land and intensified the water. So it made the water deeper, so that it would hold fish and aquatic crops on the edges and in the water. And there are different depths of water and they took that soil up and brought in other materials to make the land. Now they actually created it, but they imitated the really productive edge effect that you see in a lot of natural systems. What we've done here is we've made a shallow chinampa. So it's only this deep, and it's only this wide. And we've created this in a position where in this valley we have seven swells above us. Now for six months of the year, this valley runs water continuously and it didn't, it didn't use to. Whether it did when this landscape was untouched and forested I don't know, but we've created a system here through the central valley it's a tenant farm. Where for at least six months of the year we have a continuous flow of water. Now as all those swells forest up, I think we're going to get water flowing here almost all year. This year we've have a had deep, deep drought. Obviously it hasn't affected the fertility too much and we're only just building this system. Now in normal years, I'd be nearly up to my knees in water, we'd have a shallow crop chinampa pond here with multiple edge species. And right now you can hear the dog huntin' around behind us 'cause there's a bit of wildlife habitat here. We'll condition this by design. So the chinampas have to be on contour because water sits level, so the edges have to be on contour in relation to the land. They only fit on shallow, flat, flatish landscapes. So one you can have a high water table, and enhance the water, and enhance the land to make that extra edge effect or two you can have multiple swells and dams up hill and pick up the leaking swell water which is the recharged spring lines that we create and make a chinampa in the lower systems of an intense permaculture design. Now that's not just working with nature and nature's abundance in the way it's patterned, but that's enhancing nature itself. It's taking nature to a new level of abundance. And we've got every right to do that.

Channel: Discover Permaculture with Geoff Lawton

Views: 29,176

Keywords: Permaculture, Permaculture Australia, Permaculture design, Permaculture video, Permaculture documentary, Permaculture gardening, Permaculture farm, Permaculture design course, Gardening, forest, food, permaculture course, agriculture, nature, permaculture principles, what is permaculture, permaculture learning, sustainability, soil regeneration, urban agriculture, environment, homestead, survivalism, chinampa, water harvesting, earthworks

Id: Q1vHhl83aTk

Length: 4min 9sec (249 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2019