In the midst of climate change, population growth, and global food crisis scenarios, efforts to succeed in Sustainable Land Management (SLM) implementation are under enormous pressure. To contextualize Indigenous experiences on nature valuation in light of sustainable development efforts, we explored how the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of two Indigenous communities interacted with major land policies with sustainability implications through an ethnographic and community-based participatory research approach. Data collection tools included talking circles, storytelling, unstructured interviews, and participant observation with Indigenous community members of Shimaa and Diamante to understand how two major land management policies intersect in SLM, Indigenous values, TEK, and rights in the Peruvian Amazon. In complementation with secondary literature assessing the focal policies, the empirical data analysis, through a lens of TEK, provides a deeper examination of Indigenous peoples’ ways of knowing. Research findings show that TEK of Indigenous peoples can support values of nature and shape the design and implementation of SLM policies by incorporating Indigenous peoples’ holistic values of nature (e.g., relational and intrinsic values) and methods for sustainable and equitable land management, with improved outcomes for communities. However, the TEK of Indigenous peoples, values of nature, and rights can be at odds with the Eurocentric-oriented SLM in terms of values placed on nature, and results in a disconnection between international and national policy goals with realities at the local levels. This study concludes that to fully realize the objectives of SLM, it is imperative for decision makers to recognize the TEK of Indigenous peoples rooted in a holistic understanding of the multiple values attributed to nature, which resonates with the notion of a plural approach to valuing nature. Further, methods should include land management practices that are beneficial for such communities and not strictly for the production of goods for societal consumption, however long it may be sustained into the future. Such a management scheme would value ecologic stability, community resilience, and a wide range of human-nature values while still recognizing development needs.

In these case studies, vicuñas are presented as biocultural components of the Andean altiplano’s socioecological landscape. The environmental history of vicuñas is related to the multiple values of the species, especially of its appreciated fiber as a nature contribution to people. Vicuñas were in risk of extinction, but thanks to conservation policies, the engagement of local communities, and the efforts of scientists and naturalists, this species has recovered to an extent than allows sustainable, community-based management via chaku s , a traditional method involving the capture and release of wild vicuñas to harvest their fiber. We describe two cases where the VICAM research team (former MACS) was summoned by local institutions in Cieneguillas and Santa Catalina, both localities belonging to the Pozuelos UNESCO MAB Biosphere Reserve in Jujuy, Argentina. The process to launch and maintain the sustainable use of vicuñas is presented, focusing on the emerging challenges, dilemmas, and conflicts that shaped decision-making processes. The obstacle that seemed the most challenging beforehand—the capture itself and its biological consequences for the animals—was overcome with the development of adaptive management. Vicuña management has great potential for the sustainable development of indigenous peoples and local communities, but achieving this goal is a process ridden with difficulties, including the commercial interests of non-Andean actors. For vicuña management to become a driver of sustainable local development, a series of challenges must be overcome: power asymmetries between local communities and other stakeholders due to the monistic economic valuation of vicuña fiber, the incorporation of relational values with strict welfare protocols recognizing vicuñas as sentient beings, and the intrinsic valuation of the ecological role of the species, also considering their indisputable position as Andean ancestral biocultural heritage.