South American Camelids: their values and contributions to people

VILÁ, BIBIANA; ARZAMENDIA, YANINA

SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE

SPRINGER TOKYO

Año: 2020

1862-4065

South American Camelids (SACs) make several material and non-material contributions to people and are a key component of the Andean biocultural heritage. From the perspective of the IPBES? Conceptual Framework, SACs constitute the ?nature? component in the complex system of interactions between human societies and the Andean mountain environment. There arefour SAC living species today, two of which are wild, or Salqa, in the indigenous cosmovision: guanaco (Lama guanicoe) and vicuña (Vicugna vicugna). Llama (Lama glama) and alpaca (Vicugna pacos) were domesticated 5000 years ago, and are therefore Uywa, in the indigenous cosmovision. Both wild and domestic camelids were, and in several cases still are, the most highly appreciated resource for Andean livelihoods. Historically, camelids and their contributions have been usedby Andean people since the peopling of the Americas over 11,000 years ago. In this paper, we present three case studies (chakus for vicuña management, llama caravans, and llama nanobodies) to bring attention to the essential role of vicuñas and llamas for Andean communities today, their intercultural linkages with the Western world, and telecoupling interactions