00:00For me, the Ajolote represents an opportunity to give something back to nature.
00:15The Ajolote is in danger of extinction,
00:17more than anything because of the lack of education of the population in general, of Mexico City.
00:23Throwing garbage is one of the main dangers,
00:27because all the garbage that one throws in the street,
00:30will give to the canals, which is the habitat of the Ajolote.
00:41My project was born about three years ago,
00:44and was born as a result of being able to raise one of these specimens.
00:50When people saw that I was actually doing it well,
00:55or that I had that ability and that patience,
00:58some breeders here in Xochimilco invited me to learn it, to get to know it a little more.
01:05My purpose is to re-educate the population of Xochimilco.
01:11To re-educate in the sense of helping them and informing them why the species is so valuable,
01:16why the habitat is so valuable, why it is important to take care of the planet.
01:34My part of protecting it, preserving it, is to generate similar or more similar conditions to its habitat.
01:41I like to generate ponds in which the stress is minimal,
01:45the ability to reproduce is greater,
01:49because they don't have direct contact with me, I'm not really bothering them.
01:54So that's my way of preserving them, letting them be Ajolotes.
01:59There are few spaces and few ecological reserves in the city,
02:03where one can release an animal from these,
02:06because there are many predators, there is not a very good quality of water,
02:11so if we released an Ajolote in the canal, it would surely die.
02:25It is said that the Ajolote was a god,
02:28who had to be sacrificed by his brothers to give life to a new cycle,
02:33so he refused to be sacrificed.
02:36He fled, hid in the cornfields,
02:39and that's where his gills were left in the shape of a penis,
02:43and that's where he chose to throw himself into the canal.
02:46This story is what we know here in Xochimilco,
02:49and we have been taught since we were little.
02:51Many children are no longer taught.
02:53It's not that they don't want to share it,
02:56it's just that sometimes they get lost because they want to give more information about modernity.
03:01Modernity and the past are not fought in any sense.
03:04Knowing where we come from gives us a better perspective of where we are going,
03:09and knowing our history gives us a better vision.
03:13That's why we shouldn't lose this knowledge.
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