Not only Eastern Tibet (West Sichuan) seems to have had a bad yartsa gunbu season again, but also some Himalayan areas reported a second bad year. Several reports from Bhutan, i.e. "Slim Pickings so far this season" and Nepal, i.e. "'Himalayan Viagra' harvest droops to record low"
tell from reduced harvests and disappointed collectors. Quickly there are connections made to over collecting and the impact of climate change. It would be great if we had research that would allow to base these assumption on facts, but we do not have the data. Still over-harvesting and climate change are definitely factors to watch.
From Bhutan there is report by Tashi Dema to be read on Kuensel Online entitled: Why the magic fungus is on the wane?
Kyle Knight wrote two articles on caterpillar fungus for Huffington Post. The first one is entitled "A Caterpillar Fungus Is Nepal's El Dorado" and reports about the collection and its risks in Nepal. The second one discusses issues of sustainability and quotes ample from my research.
Other accounts of the 2012 Yartsa gunbu season:
John R. Platt wrote about Yartsa gunbu in Nepal under the questionable, but surely gripping heading "Extinction Countdown -News and research about endangered species from around the world" Yarsagumba: Aphrodisiac Fungus Faces Extinction in Nepal on June 11, 2012 in the Scientific American blog.
The 'Viagra' transforming local economies in India
BBC News Magazine - July 2012
By Craig Jeffrey Indian Himalayas
The Himalayan Cordyceps collection situation is quite different from the one on the Tibetan Plateau. Although the Himalayan countries Bhutan, India and Nepal receive a lot of media attention, they only provide only around 3 percent of the annual harvest, 97% is collected on the Tibetan Plateau (By the way, the Himalaya is a narrow mountain range on the south slope of the Plateau).
'Most striking difference is that there is lots of people involved in collection who are low-landers that have no experience in the mountains. Thus each year people die during collection, often freezing to death or falling down slopes. Such accidents are very rare on the Tibetan Plateau, where people collect in their "backyards", and thus a very familiar with the conditions.
And that term of Himalayan Viagra is bogus, no one ever claimed that Cordyceps works like Viagra. Yes, it is regarded as an aphrodisiac, but taking one dose of yartsa gunbu will not perform any instant miracles, unless the dysfunction was imagined and thus the healing power could be imagined.
Caterpillar fungus season is coming to an end in early June in Eastern Tibet. Here pickers are on their way home.
In German / Auf Deutsch: Ruth Fend from Financial Time Deutschland published a report on Yartsa gunbu:
Pilze für ein Vermögen - Einmal im Jahr verfällt die Himalaja-Region in einen Rausch. Tausende Bewohner ziehen aus, um ihr Einkommen aufzubessern mit dem Sammeln kostbarer Pilze.
[Ich wurde für diesen Bericht von Ruth Fend ausgiebig interviewt.]
Link:
http://www.ftd.de/lifestyle/outofoffice/:wertvoller-raupenpilz-pilze-fu…