Tshering* has collected yartsa gunbu, one of the world’s most valuable biological commodities, from the mountains surrounding his home for more than 40 years. He lives in the remote region of Dolpa, in northwest Nepal, where proceeds from yartsa gunbu sales have transformed local living standards over the last few decades. But, according to pickers such as Tshering, yields are drastically declining. Some attribute this to over-picking, while scientists also point to the impact of climate change.
“Before it was abundant, I used to find 10—15 pieces in a square foot,” Tshering explains. He jabs his finger firmly into the ground to indicate the frequency in a small space. “But it’s like any other crop – with potatoes for example, if you don’t keep seeds for the future and eat everything you have, then you won’t get more potatoes,” he goes on. Similar to many other Himalayan communities, locals of Dolpa now ponder when this precious natural resource will come to an end, and how they will cope afterwards.
A Crucial Income for Mountain Communities
Often called Himalayan Gold, yartsa gunbu results from a unique interaction in which fungus spores infect moth larvae living underground in the soil. The infected caterpillar is driven upward, dying just beneath the surface. The fungus, in the form of a brownish stem, sprouts from the shell of the now dead caterpillar, pushing a few centimeters above the soil.
Close-up Ophiocordyceps sinensis. Photo: Depositphotos
The phenomena of nature, also known as Ophiocordyceps sinensis, is highly valued in Chinese medicine and is consumed for a variety of ailments ranging from curing impotence to treating cancer and obesity. The benefits of yartsa gunbu have been described in Tibetan texts dating as far back as the 15th century CE, and it has been used in traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicines for centuries.
Modern science has so far failed to identify any lasting medicinal qualities.
Demand for the fungus surged to unprecedented levels following the World Athletics Championships in 1993 when Chinese female runners set multiple world records in distance running; the secret to this success, their coach claimed, were dietary supplements derived from yartsa gunbu. The price in Nepal increased by 2,300 percent in the decade preceding 2011. In 2017, the price per kilogram of high-quality specimens reached $140,000; in weight, its price has been known to rise to three times that of gold.
Found only in alpine pastures above 3,200 meters, the fungus is a crucial income source for remote mountain communities in Nepal, Bhutan, the Tibetan plateau and India. Attracted by lucrative returns, every year in the months of May and June, schools across the Nepali Himalaya close, and all able-bodied citizens decamp from their villages to temporary shelters in high-altitude grasslands. There, they spend a number of weeks face-down on the mountains, combing for the almost invisible, dark-brown shoot protruding from the ground.
Specimens are then dug up with a special fork designed for the purpose, causing high levels of environmental destruction to pasturelands. They are cleaned, and sold on through a network of traders, until they reach customers, mostly in China. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the ensuing closure of international borders, hastened the expansion of trade of the fungus to online platforms.
In Himalayan areas such as Dolpa, locals had previously sustained themselves through a mix of animal pastoralism, agriculture and trade. But, as Nima Yaryzum Gurung, a female picker from Dolpa, explains, picking and selling this fungus changed their lives. “Yartsa uplifted our living standards. It is our main source of income because farming doesn’t yield much, we are not educated and we don’t have many job options. Yartsa means we can eat good food, wear good clothes, buy more yaks and send our children to school in Kathmandu,” she goes on.
“Every summer we used to travel to Tibet to sell wheat, buckwheat, millet and rice from the lower parts of Nepal in return for salt and butter. Our yaks were always full,” Tshering remembers. Then, around 40 years ago, Tshering learnt of the Chinese desire for yartsa gunbu, and started to cater to the new demand. “After yartsa came, we didn’t need to transport grains anymore. We would go to Tibet with empty yaks and only small bags of yartsa. Then we would bring back the yaks, heavily loaded with everything we needed from China.”
Trade in yartsa gunbu was legalized in Nepal in 2001, and following this, the extent to which the fungi was changing the lives of Himalayan communities started to be understood. The areas in which yartsa gunbu grows tend to be highly remote and neglected — regions where the state has failed to develop anything more than basic healthcare and educational facilities. It is a resource that the state cannot monopolize, meaning the benefits flow, in cash, directly to some of the country’s most marginalized communities.
Overall, yartsa gunbu is believed to account for 50-70 percent of the income for thousands of households in areas it is found. One study in Dolpa estimated proceeds make up 53.3 percent of total cash income, with poorer households earning 72 percent of their cash income from the fungi. Another study, in the neighboring district of Jumla, estimated yartsa earnings made up 65 percent of households’ cash income and reduced inequality in the area by 38 percent.
An Uncertain Future
However, a consensus has emerged among Nepal’s pickers and traders that yields are steadily declining. Dolpa locals say volumes oscillate wildly each year, although the overall trajectory is downward. Tshering and others attribute this to over-picking. Indeed, it has been estimated that 94 percent of fungi are harvested before they produce and disperse spores, as reproductively mature specimens are not sought after by consumers. Research has also found that all specimens are collected, leaving only the missed few to reproduce.
But, many also point to the changing weather patterns in the region. They believe the timing and level of winter snowfall to be the main determinants of yields the following spring. “We find that when the snowfall is earlier, in October, November, December, the yartsa yields are better,” explains Lhakpa Dhondrup Lama, a local government representative in Dolpa. “But there have been very big changes in the climate. When I was young, a lot of snow fell earlier, but now it is more often falling later in January, February or March.”
Recent scientific research also indicates that changing climate conditions are contributing to the fungi’s decline, with winter precipitation and temperatures emerging as key determinants of yartsa gunbu levels; overall yields have been found to decrease as temperatures increase. Meanwhile, analysis of climate data from 1979 to 2013 reveals that winter temperatures have warmed significantly across most habitats of the caterpillar fungus.
But researchers admit that many factors must interact to create the conditions needed for caterpillar fungus to grow, and the intricate system is not fully understood. Statistical models indicate that yartsa gunbu needs large amounts of snow, cold temperatures, and close proximity to permafrost. Scientists believe the levels and timing of winter precipitation must combine with winter temperatures to create the optimal levels of soil thaw and moisture. But more research is still needed. Modelling also projects that climate change will lead to significant habitat loss of yartsa gunbu over the next few decades.
Given the monetary value, dozens of breeding centers have been set up across China, attempting to produce the biological phenomenon in laboratory settings. But, perhaps as an indication of the complexity of this natural interaction, so far these centers have not been able to infect caterpillars with spores at a rate remotely close to that of Nature’s. Scientists believe multiple strains of yartsa gunbu have evolved, that are possibly incompatible with others, complicating the process.
In Nepal, the harvesting of yartsa gunbu is unregulated at the country level, with each region setting its own rules through a mixture of both formal and informal institutions. A large part of Dolpa, where around half of Nepal’s yartsa gunbu originates, falls under Shey Phoksundo National Park – a 3,555 squared km protected area – which regulates harvesting. The National Park Authority gives permits to collectors. But the permits can be obtained by someone from any part of the country — a policy that has in the past caused deadly conflict over the resource between local and “foreign” collectors.
“For many years, experts have been arguing that yartsa gunbu should be managed by an official system, where some areas are harvested one year and then left to rest in the next, to help preserve the species,” explains Dorje Tshering Gurung, local government employment coordinator in Dolpa. But due to the remote and vast nature of alpine rangelands, and a lack of resources and manpower, such a policy would be very difficult to enforce, he adds.
Building capacity in local institutions is key to the sustainable harvesting of yartsa gunbu in Nepal, says Uttam Babu Shrestha, director of the Global Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, a Kathmandu-based research institute. “Local municipal councils have several responsibilities and rights given by the Constitution of Nepal and one is to manage the natural resources within their boundaries,” explains Shrestha. “But to manage these natural resources, you need good expertise, and based on my observations, those institutions are under-capacitated.”
Shrestha argues that local institutions are still best placed to regulate and manage the harvesting of medicinal plants, including yartsa gunbu. But, he says, they must be provided scientific data to help them form easily-implementable rules and regulations.
“They [local institutions] understand that if these resources are completely wiped out, they are the people that will suffer the most,” Shrestha continues.
Shrestha points to some areas, such as Nubri Valley in Nepal’s Gorkha district, that implement tight rules on collection: outsiders from the region are not allowed to collect the fungus, and harvesting is only allowed within a fixed window – a policy designed to leave some specimens in nature for future reproduction. But, Shrestha explains that the effectiveness of different harvesting methods in sustaining the species has not yet been studied, hampering policy formation.
The high socio-economic value of the resource makes it very difficult to restrict harvesting in a controlled way, allowing robust scientific studies. But the lucrative proceeds available also increase the importance of the species being harvested sustainably into the future, allowing monetary benefits to continue to flow to local communities. “If this had been some sort of plant, at this level of intense harvesting, it would have disappeared many years ago,” says Shrestha. “The fact that it’s still here, is very, very interesting.”
Back in Dolpa, Dorje Gurung acknowledges the impact yartsa gunbu sales have had on local living standards. However, he believes there is little sustainability in the income.
“It will last as long as nature assists us. Then it will be no more,” he says.
*Tibetan communities do not traditionally use family names.