Three years after it was declared a Protected Natural Area (ANP), Lake Texcoco is showing progressive recovery of flora and fauna, while roughly 4,300 hectares are now covered with water after an abundant rainy season in central Mexico.
Jorge Daniel Fonseca, director of the Lake Texcoco ANP, said that more than 43 million cubic meters of water was collected this year in the 14,000-hectare area which includes Lake Texcoco Ecological Park.
The aim of the ecological restoration project is to expand the lake to 9,000 hectares, a goal Fonseca expects to achieve in a year’s time.
Lake Texcoco was a natural saline lake within the Valley of Mexico, best known for being the site of an island where the Mexica built the city of Tenochtitlan, which would later become the capital of the Aztec empire.
A century after conquering the Mexica (Aztecs) in 1521, the Spaniards built drainage systems and channels in an effort to control flooding and create land for their growing capital, Mexico City.
On March 22, 2022, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared 78% of Lake Texcoco a Natural Protected Area, his goal being to restore the biodiversity lost due to the construction of an airport, which was canceled in 2018.
Since then, efforts have been undertaken to re-grass the land, reforest the area, increase protected green spaces and restore bodies of water as part of the Ecological Park project inaugurated in August 2024.
Lake Texcoco has seen an increase in bird migration this year. Before construction on the airport began in 2014, an average of 150,000 migratory birds, comprising at least 182 species, arrived there annually. That number dipped to 60,000 in 2021.
Fonseca reported that this year more than 280,000 birds — including three new species — had arrived to winter in the Lake Texcoco ANP.
In total, the ANP is home to 76 species of flora and fauna and more than half of the park — 7,981 hectares — is regarded as a priority zone, with 65% of those hectares classified as “extreme priority” due to the biodiversity.
The National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) is focusing its efforts on ensuring that Lake Texcoco continues to be home to the 580 species of plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals that lived and migrated there until 2021.
The project also involves recovering the surface area utilized by the unfinished airport project. After this year’s generous rainfall, 95% of the construction area has been recovered by the lake.
As Lake Texcoco recovers, rising water swallows the ruins of the canceled airport
Green spaces have emerged from among the rubble of the abandoned structures and the pilings of the canceled project barely rise above a layer of water that reaches up to 7 meters deep in areas.
The architect in charge of the restoration project, Iñaki Echeverría, told Uno TV that parts of the airport and hydraulic projects made for that project are being used to build wetlands.
He is also leading efforts to restore the bodies of water in the Ciénega de San Juan, Lagunas Xalapango, Texcoco Norte and Lake Nabor Carrillo, all within the ANP Lake Texcoco.
With reports from La Jornada, Uno TV and El Soberano
