In a rapidly changing world, how can travelers work more collaboratively with communities to help defend the traditions, cultures and practices that local people depend on for survival? In Defensores de las Chinampas, Adventure.com journeys to the edge of Mexico City to spend time with a family that’s finding out in real time.
In Defensores de las Chinampas (Champions of the Chinampas), we head to Tláhuac, a borough on the edge of Mexico City, to stay with the Rioja family.
The Riojas have farmed the region’s chinampas—a series of small, man-made islands designed for agricultural purposes—for 15 generations. But with urban expansion and climate change threatening the chinampas’ very existence, tourism has emerged as an unlikely ally in the fight to hold on to this ancient legacy.
This documentary is proudly brought to you by Intrepid Travel.
If you’d like to visit the chinampas and play a small role in helping preserve this ancient farming practice, you can head to intrepidtravel.com/mexico for more information.
Defensores de las Chinampas was filmed on location by Hunter N. Johnson. The Adventure.com team took great care to ensure the environmental and cultural footprint of this production was as minimal as possible. At the time of filming, we worked with Hunter partly due to him living so close to the shoot location—so close that he was able to catch a cab there and back. The documentary was produced and written remotely by the Adventure.com team in Australia to minimize the need for unnecessary flights and on-the-ground crew. Aside from local crew from Intrepid Travel, Hunter was the only Adventure.com team member on the ground for the production of this film.
Adventure.com would like to thank to Intrepid Travel and the Rioja family for making this documentary possible.
Credits:
A film by Hunter N. Johnson for Adventure.com
Written and produced by Taryn Stenvei and Oliver Pelling
Intrepid support provided by Juan Carlos Guzmàn, Luis Felipe Guerra
Drone footage by Jesús Ángel Fortunatt Serafin (DrondeAndamosFRT)
Muchas gracias a Isaac Ramírez Martínez, Virginia Ramírez Rioja, Reye Ramírez Rioja y sus familias por su gran hospitalidad y por compartir su importante historia
(Special thanks to Isaac Ramírez Martínez, Virginia Ramírez Rioja, Reye Ramírez Rioja and their families for their great hospitality and for sharing their important story)
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