<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/637234459c7e80680e0c4925jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>A typical landscape of yarsa, alpine meadow above treeline and below snowline. Pictured here is Manang’s Chuli Peak. All photos: ACHYUT TIWARI</figcaption></figure>A young girl in the Ray-Ban sunglass is singing along to the tune of a song playing on a portable woofer she is carrying. She has just come out of Yak Kkharkha lodge in Upper Manang and is on her way to collect yarsagumba for the day.Throughout the yarsa-picking season from March to June, Tashi Gurung has been going to the meadows daily to pick the valuable caterpillar fungus. She is happy about how much she has collected this season.“I feel energised and happy when I manage to gather 50 or more pieces a day but when we pick only a few, me and my friends have to go hungry,” says Gurung.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mushroom-trekking-in-the-himalaya/">Mushroom trekking in the Himalaya</a>, Sarah Watson<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/637234489c7e80680e0c4926jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1126"><figcaption>Yarsagumba collectors scaling up in the meadows earlier this year in May in Yak Kharka. Most of them were youngsters.</figcaption></figure>Highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine, yarsagumba is supposed to have health benefits and can fetch up to $110,000 per kg in Beijing. It is extensively hunted across the Himalayas and in Nepal, caravans of people from rural villages move to the higher elevations to follow the pre-monsoon yarsa gold rush every year. Demand has gone up during the pandemic due to the belief that the fungus has therapeutic properties.They do not get anywhere near international prices, but the lucrative hunt has largely lifted many parts of rural Nepal from poverty, allowing them to afford food, healthcare and education.This year the price of yarsa at the collection site is Rs300-350 per piece depending on the quality, but the caterpillar fungus can get harvesters up to Rs1,000 if it’s larger and golden yellow in colour.Local contractors usually buy the fungus from collectors as soon as it is picked. This rids collectors from having to clean and dry it as well as prevents theft and bargaining.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/eastern-nepals-mundum-landscape/">Eastern Nepal’s Mundum landscape</a>, Achyut Tiwari and Ramesh Kumar Rai<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/6372344b9c7e80680e0c4927jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="624"><figcaption>Yarshagumba Ophiocordyceps sinensis being dried and cleaned for sale in Manang’s Yak Kharka in May.</figcaption></figure>“We have more than 1,000 collectors this season in this area and over half of them are from Gorkha,” says another collector Dhan Bahadur Gurung.Dwindling harvests of the 'Himalayan viagra' can lead to conflict. In 2009, seven pickers from Gorkha were killed in Manang's Nar Phu region in a dispute with locals. Six local people were convicted of the murders.Tashi Gurung of Manang’s Nagawal is among more than 20 local contractors involved in Yarsagumba trade from Upper Manang and has a target of trading 10kg of yarsa worth Rs20 million this season.But over-harvesting and rapid environmental change in higher elevation areas of the Himalaya have meant that this unique Himalayan fungus is in steep decline.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-yarsa-picking-time/">It’s yarsa-picking time</a>, Alton C Byers<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131124/6372344f9c7e80680e0c4928jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1126"><figcaption>Yarshagumba, ready for packaging and sale. The caterpillar fungus can get harvesters up to Rs1,000 per piece but internationally has been sold at $110,000 per kg.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234539c7e80680e0c4929jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1998"><figcaption>Heavy snowfall at Yak Kharka in late spring earlier this year which halted the hunt for yarsa.</figcaption></figure>As it is, very little is known about the life cycle of this composite species which is a fungus that grows out of a caterpillar hibernating underground. Now, intensified human activity during collection such as digging and trampling, and increasing day temperature and early melting of snow have affected the regeneration of the fungus.Unseasonal spring blizzards due to climate change could also be affecting the life cycle of the fungus, which is sensitive to the duration and extent of snowfall.For example, heavy snowfall on the last week of May at Upper Manang earlier this year was unusual for the season and halted the yarsa hunt of over a thousand local collectors who were stranded in their shelters.Yarshagumba Ophiocordyceps sinensis is commonly called the Chinese Caterpillar Fungus. The formation of Yarsagumba is due to the parasitism of larvae of swift moths, resulting in the development of fruiting bodies which is a highly popular herbal remedy.After the germination of larvae by a fungus, the latter kills the insect and mummifies it. From the fruit body, a dark brown colour emerges from the dead insect and stands upright, taking the form of yarsagumba.Yarsagumba is found at 3,500-5,000m above sea level in Himalayan meadows of Nepal, Bhutan, India and Tibet. In Nepal, it is collected from more than 12 districts including Darchula, Dolpa, Jumla, Mugu, Bajang, Rukum, Myagdi, Manang, Gorkha, Rasuwa, Sindhupalchok and Sankhuwasabha.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/why-is-it-vital-to-protect-the-chure/">Why is it vitall to protect the Chure?</a>, Achyut Tiwari<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131128/637234579c7e80680e0c492ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="751" height="1000"><figcaption>Spectacular view of Yak Kharka in Manang and people ascending the mountain in search of Yarsagumba in May 2022.</figcaption></figure>Yarsa from Nepal is exported to the high demand countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Burma, Thailand, Singapore, and Japan.Harvesting and selling of yarsagumba was banned until 2001 in Nepal. But the government later re-allowed it as long as collectors paid a royalty. it can now only be collected and traded after getting annual local and national approval.This year there was a steep increase in the number of registered collector in the Annapurna Conservation Area Project with 1,000 permits issued. The steep increase in the numbers is due to a pause during the last two years of the pandemic.Achyut Tiwari is plant ecologist at the Central Department of Botany at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

Giving yarsagumba a chance for regrowth

October is buckwheat harvest time in the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/dazzling-dolpo/">distant highlands of Dolpo</a>. In the village of Tso, Namdak Sangmo watches other women from her village fling their sickles, stoop over to sling the sheaves on their shoulders, and bring the crop in. Sangmo, 68, does not have her own crop to harvest because she does not have any land anymore. Her riverside terraces were washed away by a flash flood in 2012, and another one in 2019 destroyed what was left, leaving a barren boulder-strewn slope. “It was a raging torrent, and it came down suddenly and swept everything in its path, I do not have any land left to farm,” says Sangmo. She is not the only one, almost half the villagers in Tso lost their standing crop and fields when a wall of mud and boulders raced down from the slopes of the 6,883m high Mt Kanjiroba that towers over the district. Scientists have not drawn a direct correlation between the climate crisis and extreme weather events like this, but they say there is evidence that droughts, record downpours, and erratic monsoons in the Himalaya are a result of a hotter atmosphere. This year’s monsoon has seen freak downpours and unprecedented rainfall in the trans-Himalayan regions of Nepal. Unseasonal rains this week unleashed deadly floods and landslides, especially in western Nepal. The Himalayan mountains are warming between 0.3-0.7°C faster than the global average, causing glaciers to shrink, snowlines to recede, and increasing the danger of floods when expanding glacial lakes burst. <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18e39c7e80680e0ac7edjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"></div> Sangmo remembers well that September day two years ago. “It had rained non-stop for two days, and suddenly we heard a big roar from up the mountain, my brother-in-law told us to run,” she recalls. There was unusually heavy rain where snow used to fall, and the fragile moraine ridges below Kanjiroba just dissolved, sending the debris flow racing down to the village below. A similar flood in June on the Melamchi River damaged Kathmandu’s water-supply project, Nepal’s most expensive infrastructure scheme. In Manang, a trans-Himalayan valley north of the Annapurnas, there was record-breaking rainfall that unleashed deadly floods. “There is more and more evidence that extreme rainfall events are caused by climate change, and these trigger sudden floods that destroy farms and settlements downstream,” says Arun Shrestha, a climate specialist with the River Basins and Cryosphere division at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). There has not been enough study to determine if the Dolpo flood was <a href="https://www.dhm.gov.np/uploads/climatic/467608975Observed%20Climate%20Trend%20Analysis%20Report_2017_Final.pdf">caused by a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF)</a>, or just extra-heavy rainfall on sediment deposits in high mountain valleys, but the result was just as devastating. <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18da9c7e80680e0ac7eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">The tongue of the glacier below Kanjiroba from which the floods came down.</div> A recent Himalayan <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-glacial-lakes-in-danger-of-bursting/">Glacial Lake Inventory</a> by <a href="https://www.icimod.org/event/glacial-lake-inventory-launch/">ICIMOD </a>and UNDP mapped 3,624 new glacial lakes on Nepal’s main river basins and found that 47 of them could <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/more-himalayan-tsunamis/">burst at any time</a>, with the risk of catastrophic flooding down valley. Of these, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-glacial-lakes-in-danger-of-bursting/">25 lakes are in Tibet,</a> but flow into tributaries of Nepal’s main rivers. While communities in Nepal have historically learnt to reduce risk from these floods by not settling along riverbanks, new poorly-designed roads, settlements and infrastructure are vulnerable to these climate induced disasters. While GLOFs can happen at some point in the future, weather extremes caused by the climate crisis have already unleashed a creeping disaster in Himalayan villages like Tso. This year, a 7-month <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/no-smoke-without-fire-2/">winter drought led to wildfires</a> and floods in Dolpo, displacing farmers, and forcing them to migrate. As <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Shey-Phoksundo-may-soon-become-a-bus-park,3975">Dolpo is connected by road</a>, most men have left rural areas for work in the cities or abroad to supplement their income, and it is the women who stay behind who bear the brunt of the impact of climate change -- the drudgery of having to walk farther for water, or suffer from failed harvests. <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18dd9c7e80680e0ac7ebjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Massive flashfloods in 2012 and 2019 that came down from Mt Kanjiroba washed away fields and homes in Tso village.</div> “Climate change adds to the extra load of women in rural areas because of unpredictable rain, floods droughts and springs going dry,” says <a href=".%20https:/www.icimod.org/team/abid-hussain/">Abid Hussain</a>, of the Mountain Agriculture and Livelihood division of ICIMOD. Most of Nepal’s subsistence farmers are dependent on rain-fed agriculture, and <a href="https://www.thestatesman.com/world/women-participation-in-agriculture-is-highest-in-nepal-1502659946.html">83% of the country's women are fulltime farmers</a>. Namdak Sasngmo’s husband died 15 years ago, and her children are married. Without her fields, she finds it difficult to take care of her family. Nepal’s central or local governments should be helping her, but there has been no compensation for the loss and damage. Without her fields, with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/trekking-to-save-nepals-snow-leopards/">no income from trekking tourism</a> due to the pandemic, and a decline in the yarsagumba crop, Sangmo is worried. Left to fend for themselves, she has fallen back on her faith in the Tibetan animist belief system that has deep reverence for the mountains as divine creations that have their serene and destructive sides that need to be appeased through prayer and good deeds. “We may have angered the gods of Kanjiroba with our deeds,” says Sangmo.“We made the river impure and many outsiders came and polluted the lake.” <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18e09c7e80680e0ac7ecjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Namdak Sangmo, 50, harvests buckwheat in a neighbour’s field because her farm was washed away by the flood.</div> To prevent future calamities, the monk at the local monastery, Khenpo Lama, performed a ritual to appeal to Mt Kanjiroba with a shebchu at a small stupa with offerings of buckwheat and barley. Sangmo believes it worked, because “everything has been quiet on the mountain after that”. From his monastery, Khenpo Nyima himself has noticed the change in weather, and the snow retreating higher and higher up Kanjiroba. Although he does not connect this to the global climate crisis, he is convinced outsiders are to blame. “We have seen the mountains changing, and that is because there are more and more outsiders coming here and they are desecrating nature,” he says, looking up at the icy tongue of a glacier below Kanjiroba, the top of which is veiled in monsoon clouds. He says the modern world has also changed the traditional ways in Dolpo. Local people no longer rely on dorima that determines the schedule for planting, harvesting, and the timings for taking yaks and goats up to high pasture. “They also do not put up prayer flags in the yulsa every year, and this has displeased the gods,” Khenpo Nyima adds. <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18e39c7e80680e0ac7edjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"></div> However, the local government and the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/saving-shey-phoksundo-in-nepal,3596">Shey Phoksundo National Park</a> are not relying on prayers to protect citizens here. They built an embankment along the river after the 2012 flood to shield Tso’s village and farms, but it was washed away in the second flood in 2019. “We may need a bigger budget to build a proper wall that will save the village the next time there is a big flood, I am trying to convince the municipality authorities, but we need more help,” says Nima Lama, the ward chair. However, studies have shown that people in mountain regions across the world have been adapting to the changing climate without knowing why it is changing, and using local belief systems and traditions to do so. <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-06-mountain-dwellers-glaciers-climate.html">Anthropologist Ben Orlove of Columbia University’s Earth Institute</a> interviewed people in locales including the Peruvian Andes, and found that while villagers were aware of the changes, they were adapting to them without necessarily linking it to climate change. Orlove proposes framing the ‘climate change’ narrative as a need for ‘community change’ so the focus is on how villagers can benefit from the measures they take to adapt to lack of rain, water shortages, or flood-prevention embankments. That appears to be already happening here in Dolpo, an arid trans-Himalayan region of Nepal where people are falling back on a sense of community and traditional belief systems to cope with the impacts of the climate crisis. <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18e69c7e80680e0ac7eejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Yarsagumba is a fungus that grows on a caterpillar, and is harvested in spring in the Himalaya. It is in high demand across the border in China.</div> The climate and ‘Himalayan viagra’ As the climate crisis impacts on the pastoral lifestyle of the people of Dolpo, the women who remain in the remote villages have started relying more and more on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-yarsa-picking-time/">yarsagumba, the caterpillar fungus</a> that is prized in Chinese medicine for its supposed aphrodisiac properties. These days, it is mainly women who climb up to the high slopes where the fungus pokes out of the ground after snow melts in spring. They harvest the yarsagumba and sell it to middlemen who in turn sell it to wholesalers at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/new-high-way-to-dolpo/">Chinese border, 4 days walk to the north.</a> However, a combination of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heavy-snowfall-over-nepal-himalaya/">unseasonal snowfall</a>, long periods of drought and warmer weather is affecting the yarsagumba, too. Schools in Dolpo close at yarsa harvest time so students can accompany parents to the pick the fungus, but this year they have returned empty-handed. “We went up in April, but the yarsa was not fully mature and it was soggy, there was nothing to pick,” says one student, Sangmo Lama. <div class="embed-block"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161128/636d18e99c7e80680e0ac7efjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">With her trekking income gone, and farm washed away by floods, Namdak Sangmo used to depend on yarsagumba picking. But even the growth of the fungus has been affected by weather extremes caused by climate change.</div> While over-harvesting in the past has been one of the reasons for the decline in the yarsa crop, it should have revived in the past two years when the pandemic reduced the numbers of pickers. That lends support to the theory that a warmer Himalaya is also affecting growth of the valuable fungus and contributes to the end of the yarsa <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/yarsagumba-dispute-dolpa,1424">gold rush</a>. Local people who relied on tourism and livestock for income had <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18321#.XnOPvS2B3-Y">earnings from the fungus</a> as a fall back. Now, that option is also gone. Yarsa made up more than half of the annual income of an average Dolpo household. While the fungus is sold for only Rs5,000 per kg to the Chinese traders at the border, it can fetch as much as $75,000 per kg in Shanghai. After she lost her fields to the glacial floods, Namdak Sangmo of Tso village used to rely solely on yarsa income. She used to collect at least 100 pieces of fungus in the past, two years ago she found only six pieces, and this spring none at all. “Without yarsa what do we eat? How do we survive? The mountain was angry and took away my fields, there is nothing to do but pray,” says Sangmo, as she sharpens her sickle to help the other women in their buckwheat fields. This report was supported by the Road to COP26 campaign implemented by the British Council and funded by UKAID.

Climate change is a disaster in the Nepal Himalaya

https://youtu.be/ZBGnZ7H7l_kThe yarsa gumba harvesting season this year coincides with the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/what-is-novel-about-the-novel-coronavirus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coronavirus scare</a>  and as rumours spread about its supposed medicinal properties, there could be a run on the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/overharvesting-yarsa-and-income,1546" target="_blank" rel="noopener">over-extracted Himalayan fungus</a> this year.Furthermore, with the spring trekking season wiped out by the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/global-thinking-and-local-action-on-coronavirus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID-19 epidemic</a>  local people dependent on tourism income will now have to fall back on <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18321#.XnOPvS2B3-Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">earnings from a fungus</a> that fetches high prices across the Himalaya in China.The highest-quality yarsa can fetch up to $70,000 per kg in China, and its collection each mid-May to mid-July can account for between 65% and 100% of a picker’s annual income. But the profits can be both a blessing and a curse.The additional income helps pay for food, education and support for aging parents, and donations to local monasteries. But the harvest season also brings an influx of tens of thousands of people each spring to Nepal’s fragile alpine ecosystem in a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/yarsagumba-dispute-dolpa,1424" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stampede that looks like a gold rush</a>.Whole hillsides of slow-growing juniper are cut each year for fuel in Dolpo and Tibet, and there has been an increase in wildlife poaching, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/everest-fights-back/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">litter and garbage</a>  and free-range defecation. There has also been an increase in alcohol and drug consumption, conspicuous consumerism, the loss of traditional cultural values, violence, and even occasional murders.But here in <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/high-water" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Barun Valley</a> the impact of the yarsa season is more benign due to closer engagement of the local community. The Barun is a beyul, a sacred valley blessed by Guru Rinpoche in the 8th century as a refuge for the faithful in times of stress. The landscape is dominated by the spectacular rock face of Shiva Danda, where three caves look like the eyes and nose of Lord Shiva. Each summer, pilgrims undertake the difficult and dangerous rock climb to the caves.There is also a pigmented cliff at Riphuk which pilgrims believe is a painting of a snow leopard by Guru Rinpoche. Ama Buchung is a rock massif in the shape of a pregnant woman, known for granting the gift of children to the devout. There is also the sacred Seto Pokhari glacial lake near Mt Makalu base camp.The main difference between the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19381#.XnOPwi2B3-Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">yarsa harvesting season</a> in the Barun and in western Nepal is terrain. While much of the yarsa in Dolpo are on rolling high-altitude meadows, in the Barun the fungus grows upon precipitous slopes dropping thousands of metres to the valleys below.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b792c9c7e80680e0646e9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="720"/>Mt Makalu (8,485m) towers over the sacred Seto Pokhari glacial lake.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101152/636b792f9c7e80680e0646eajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1080" height="608">Young yarsa harvesters comb the slopes high above the Barun River. Photo: TSERING SHERPAConversations with Makalu-Barun National Park officials, lodge owners, yarsa middlemen and harvesters showed that there are about 3,000 people who come to collect the fungus here every spring. Unlike in other regions in Nepal, they do not leave behind much trash, carry in their own fuelwood, and cannot remember any violence.Sherpa families from Tashigaon have been camping and harvesting yarsa here for years. Young men from Seduwa sleep in teahouses in the Valley and hike up 1,500m to the meadows each morning to pick yarsa. There are laughing school children on holiday, and everyone seems to have a good time.The main reason for the peaceful, non-competitive atmosphere is that the quality and value of yarsa in the Makalu-Barun region is not as high as that from Tibet or Dolpo. In 2016, a kilogram of Makalu yarsa fetched only $4,800 from the local middleman, as compared to $21,120 for the famously large, yellowish, and pungent smelling Dolpo yarsa.Furthermore, instead of representing up to 90% of a family’s income as it does in Dolpo, yarsa harvests here yield the same income as portering, raising livestock, lodge management or work at Makalu Base Camp that paid $20 per day. With the collapse of trekking this season, however, there could be more pressure.In the Barun Valley, yarsa has been just one more source of income in an already diversified economy. Income from yarsa has just not been worth fighting over.More importantly, villagers, the Buffer Zone Council, and the local government have developed a system to manage yarsa harvests that is fair and equitable.As a result the stunningly beautiful but fragile Barun Valley ecosystem remains largely undisturbed and intact.<h2>Yarsa gumba merchandise</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79319c7e80680e0646ebjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1034" height="522"><a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/regulation-of-yarsa,1547" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Products containing yarsa gumba extracts</a> have become increasingly popular due to the fungus' purported health benefits. Yarsa is known to some by the nickname ‘Himalayan viagra’, and most commercial products that make use of it emphasise anti-aging and libido-inducing qualities. In China yarsa is even added to whiskey and cigarettes.Yu Chun Mei Cordyceps is a China-made skin cream (above, left) that claims to fight skin-ageing and eliminate wrinkles, black spots and pimples. The day-and-night cream claims to be made from 100% natural ingredients and is sold in various countries in Asia.Probably the most widely found product to use yarsa gumba extract is tea made from the fungus, of which the varieties are many (above, right). Manufacturers of the teas claim that they treat fatigue, sickness, kidney disease and low sex drive.Some bars in Kathmandu serve aged aila infused with yarsa gumba, which gives the spirit a tangy aroma that competes with the smell of the alcohol. A manufacturer in Nepal even markets yarsa gumba capsules as a ‘health supplement.’<h2>YARSA-NOMICS</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79349c7e80680e0646ecjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2144" height="580">Yarsa gumba has been used by the Chinese for hundreds of years to treat a variety of illnesses, and its more recent reputation as an aphrodisiac has added greatly to its marketability. Wealthy Chinese also use it in soups and tea as a status symbol when serving favored guests.Yarsa gumba, translated from the Tibetan as ‘summer grass winter worm’, carries the scientific name Ophiocordyceps sinensis. It is one of the most valuable medicinal fungi in the world and grows in Himalayan valleys above 4,000m from western India to Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79379c7e80680e0646edjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="438" height="582"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101156/636b79389c7e80680e0646eejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>There are more than 200 species of Cordyceps (short for Ophiocordyceps) fungus worldwide, and in Nepal they parasitise the bodies of ghost-moth larva that live on the roots of alpine wildflowers found high up in summer yak pastures.Once contact with the larva is made, the fungus remains dormant for about four years, after which it begins to slowly consume the larva’s insides, leaving behind a shell that looks like a mummified caterpillar. The little mummy larva then slowly shifts its body to point upward toward the surface, after which a black ‘stromata’ grows from its forehead and emerges as a fruiting body 4cm long.It takes sharp eyes to find these pointed, black, stem-like mushrooms, and young children, with their keen eyesight and low proximity to the ground, are by far the most successful collectors. The stromata is ever-so-carefully pulled upward using forefinger and thumb to reveal the entire yarsa gumba body, which is then cleaned, dried, and stored in cloth bags.According to anthropologist Geoff Childs, the introduction of yarsa gumba harvesting since legalised by the Nepal Government in 2001 has ‘…contributed to economic and environmental transformations across the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan region...than any development scheme could envision’.Alton C Byers, PhD is a mountain geographer at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, (INSTAAR) University of Colorado at Boulder. In the mid-1990s, he worked as co-manager of the newly formed Makalu-Barun National Park. His recent paper on yarsa gumba harvesting in the Barun Valley is published in the journal Himalaya (v. 39, number 2)

It's yarsa-picking time

mainNavigation

footerNavigation

opinionSubnav

yarsa-gumba

Giving yarsagumba a chance for regrowth

Climate change is a disaster in the Nepal Himalaya

It's yarsa-picking time