Cordyceps Mishaps in the Mean Stream News

Caterpillar fungus made it in the main stream news in January. From the BBC to New York Post . The articles focused on a sad story of a mass murder in Nepal's Annapurna region. In a nutshell the sad story went like this: A group of 7 non-local poachers were found sneaking into the village's Cordyceps habitat and was confronted by 65 local men. One of the poaching Gorkhas got killed, so some came up with the idea to kill them all and pretend nothing ever happened. Well, that did not work. Now 35 of them are accused of murder. The story was originally brought to light to western readersby Jamie James article "Nepal's Aphrodisiac War" published in Men's Journal in May 2010, it previously was reported in South Asian media.

Not surprising, but still disappointing, the media attention focused on the dark side of the Yartsa gunbu story, or Yarsagumba as it is known in Nepali. The BBC piece by Joanna Jolly was entitled: "Yarsagumba - Curse of Himalayan Annapurna Region". Sadly, each year some people get killed when emotions run high in the context of harvesting this extremely precious fungus. We are talking of an annual harvest worth in the hundreds of millions, and these are not Rupees or Yuan, but Dollars or Euros. Real big money in this otherwise impoverished region of Tibet and the Himalayas. Taking these astronomical values into account in an industry that takes place in extremely remote areas with very little oversight, it is surprising how few fatal incidents happen each year.  In regard of value generated and transferred, the Yartsa gunbu fever is probably best compared to an annually reoccurring gold rush. And gold rushes are an economic phenomenon usually accompanied by many, many more fatalities. 

In general, I am very impressed how non-combative the whole collection is and how peaceful the collection season passes each year. And, yes, each fatality is very sad and unnecessary. Already some stories have been published, for example from Dzato County in South Qinghai where some local officials got killed in 2005 over selling harvesting permits to outsiders without consulting the locals or sharing profits with locals. I also mention a few other cases in my 2008 Economic Botany article on the Yartsa gunbu economy in Tibet.

Another sad event I heard about took place in Nagchu in 2009. A local herder and a collector got in a fight. The herder insisted it was not acceptable to pick Yartsa gunbu around the shores of a sacred lake. The devout person saw the purity of the site being spoiled. A fight ensued and one of them got killed, thus in the end human blood spoiled the water of the sacred lake. 

This raises the question why do many Tibetan people, be they under Chinese or Nepali rule, regard the collection of Yartsa gunbu as a source of bad karma? This perspective stems from a traditional Tibetan taboo, described in Namkhai Norbu's book "journey among Tibetan nomads" (2002) that digging up the ground for roots or mineral upsets the local spirits, which then will strike the transgressor, his or her clan and their livestock with disease and other misfortune. Furthermore, Yartsa gunbu is perceived as a living creature, the larva is still alive from a traditional perspective, thus harvesting caterpillar fungus is an act of killing. However from a scientific view the killing of the insect was already done by the fungus, the collectors are now taking the life of the insect killing fungus, an act that usually receives much less attention, since mushrooms are perceived as a less conscious life-form than animals.

Back to recent articles on Yartsa gunbu; Much relevant information on Caterpillar fungus is contained in an English language article by French Observer 24 entitled:  , worth its weight in gold".


Here an image of maybe Tibet's first Yartsa Gunbu Thangka, I hope I did not upset any traditionalists commissioning this scroll painting including the Medicine Buddha - Sanggye Menla སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ། and Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorje, a famous Tibetan Physician, who wrote about Yartsa Gunbu in the 15th Century, the first known record of Ophiocordyceps sinensis.