Climate change eating into Himalayan Viagra output?

The precious plant that has brought riches to many villages in Nepal’s highlands.

Thousands of people in western Nepal trek up to highlands (as high as 5,000 meters) to gather yarsagumba with the hope of making millions of rupees. But this year was unlike any other before. The harvest season has just come to an end leaving behind collectors with grim faces.

On the one hand they had to work around Covid-19-related restrictions and on the other it was also difficult to find yarsagumba.

Those who trek up for yarsagumba live under precarious conditions for a month or two every year with their families. They roam around to collect the precious plant, generally found at an altitude of 3,000-5,000 meters, and which is believed to possess aphrodisiac qualities.

With more and more people venturing into the wilderness to gather yarsagumba to meet its insatiable demand, its very existence has been threatened. Thus the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN) placed it under the ‘vulnerable’ Red List in 2020.

The locals, who call this fungal plant kira (insect), have also been frustrated in recent years due to growing competition and declining availability.

Take, for example, the people in Maikot village of Rukum district in western Nepal who depended on yarsagumba found in Pupal Valley, located between Rukum and Dolpa districts, for their livelihood.

The plant is no longer easily available, feels Bharat Kumar Pun, an active member of the local yarsagumba management committee. “In the past few years, the number of hands picking yarsagumba has grown alarmingly,” he says. “The number of yarsagumba plants has decreased alarmingly though.”

“A decade ago, we used to collect up to 150 kg of the plant,” recalls Pun. “It is difficult to collect 50 kg now.”

Whereas a single person used to collect hundreds of pieces in the past, you can hardly collect 15-30 pieces a day now, adds Pun. “We didn’t know the reasons earlier, but now we have heard about the impact of climate change. That seems real and logical.”

I had visited Pupal during the 2016 harvesting season and couldn’t find a single piece in a day. The situation is pretty much the same, say locals.

Around 2,500 people from the local villages went to Pupal to harvest yarsagumba last year. This year, due to covid-related restrictions, only locals were permitted to collect the plant. Each collector was charged Rs 2,000. 

Profitable no more

Twenty-five-year-old Sushit Pun Magar was one of those who managed to get a permit. But her excitement was short-lived, as she could hardly find six or seven pieces of yarsagumba in the first couple of days. A piece of yarsagumba generally sells between Rs 300 to Rs 1,200, depending on its quality.

Realizing that it was a waste of time, she instead decided to run a temporary hotel for other collectors instead. She earned just Rs 3,200 selling the pieces she collected but made much more by dispensing dal bhat, the staple Nepali diet. “Cooking and serving dal bhat was easier and more profitable,” she says.

Encouraged by the profits yarsagumba brought, many people in Maikot even quit their traditional income sources such as agriculture, livestock, and weaving. They used to trek to the highlands for two months and sustain their livelihood year-round from the income. But many of them are now planning to get back to their old ways.

Some like Aita Man Pun, 41, of Maikot, have even migrated to other cities seeking employment. Now based in Nawalparasi, he has not gone to pick yarsagumba for three years.

“It has become difficult to find good pieces,” he says. “Earning enough from it has thus become hard. It was our major source of income, but we failed to protect it.”

He recalls how his sister, Mayamani, used to make big profits by collecting yarsagumba. She alone collected 1,500-1,900 pieces every season. “People were honest back then. There was no looting even when you dried all the collected fungus in the open,” he recalls.

Mayamani now lives in Japan, while their younger brother has also quit the yarsa hunt out of frustration.

Besides issues like haphazard camping, littering, dust, smoke, and grazing of sheep and horses, Pun reckons climate change too might be responsible for the plant’s decline. He has seen soil quality degrade. 

Here comes climate change

Though locals have heard about climate change, they don’t know how it manifests locally. Biodiversity researcher Uttam Babu Shrestha also suspects the role of climate change on the decline in Yarsagumba volumes as the plant is sensitive to changing temperature. “But there has been no field-based scientific study to make a definite claim.”

But there are enough studies to prove that climate change in the Himalayas has impacted hydrology, agriculture, and ecosystems and resulted in altitudinal shifts of vegetation communities. Thus its impact on the availability of yarsagumba can’t be ruled out.

“A modeling-based study suggested that a 1-degree increase in temperature reduces the production of yarsagumba by 64 percent,” says Shrestha.

Shrestha stresses the need for a proper study of its ecology and the natural rate of reproduction. “We also need to work with local communities and build formal and informal institutions that can regulate detrimental harvesting practices,” he adds.

Shrestha is disappointed that even though the government, including local municipalities, collect high taxes from harvesters and traders, it does not invest in proper study and research on yarsagumba or on the security of harvesters.

A 2018 research titled ‘The demise of caterpillar fungus in the Himalayan region due to climate change and overharvesting’, an analysis of multiple evidence-based approaches using data spanning nearly two decades and four countries, revealed that caterpillar fungus production is declining through much of the Himalayan range.

“While collectors increasingly attribute the decline in caterpillar fungus to overharvesting, habitat and production modeling suggests that climate change is also likely playing a role,” Kelly A Hopping from the Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, and Stephen M Chignell, from Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, write in their report.

“Significant winter drying trends in Nepal may be shifting the timing of snowmelt and reducing moisture availability needed to promote fungal fruiting, thus potentially contributing to the decreasing production,” the report reads. 

Not a priority

The government started issuing permits to harvest and collect yarsagumba in 2006. Before that, it was a free-for-all. For export, traders must seek the permission of the Department of Forests, the Department of Commerce, and the District Forest Office by paying certain taxes.

After China's Tibet, Nepal is the second-largest supplier of this expensive plant to global markets. The fungus is mostly found in Dolpa, Rukum, Bajhang, and Darchula districts.

The Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE) agrees that there have not been enough studies to understand the impact of climate change on yarsagumba.

The ministry issues directives in terms of managerial tasks, including yarsagumba collection, waste management, and social problems, according to Buddhi Sagar Poudel, its spokesperson. “We have collection-based protocols but we lack scientific protocols.”

But he promises that the issue “will feature in our to-do list and we will soon conduct macro-level studies.” 

Yarsagumba fact file

Yarsagumba, also known as caterpillar fungus or Himalayan Viagra, goes by the scientific name of Ophiocordyceps sinensis. The finger-shaped fungus that sprouts above the soil and is two to five centimeters long is believed to have aphrodisiac qualities. It is usually golden in color, soft to touch, and tastes like a dairy product. Besides its aphrodisiac qualities, people believe that it can treat cancer and other lungs, kidneys, and stomach related diseases. Though this precious plant is sold across the world, China is its biggest market.