First news reports are trickling in regarding the 2011 collection season, which is underway all over the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas.

When I was in Washington DC in late March to present on Cordyceps sustainability at the World Wildlife Fund headquarters "Cordyceps - Tibet's Golden Fungus: Bane or Blessing? I was also interviewed by Boyd Matson from National Geographic Weekend, a radio show.

The subject was, surprise! surprise! Caterpillar fungus. We talked about its role in Tibet, sustainability issues and its perceived and actual "potency". NG weekend was so kind to send me an edited ten minute audio file you can listen to here. I thought it is quite entertaining and informative, but I might be biased......

It took me four months to finally add a new entry here yesterday - I spend much more time on my web pages at www.MushRoaming.com - and today this comes through the news ticker:


Apparently, Gilenya, as it is marketed by Novartis, a new promising Multiple Sclerosis drug has been developed from Cordyceps sinensis. Twenty five years ago the researcher Tetsuro Fujita had the idea to use Cordyceps since it must suppress the immune system of the ghost moths it feeds on in the Highlands of Tibet and the Himalayas.

We do not know if any real Cordyceps is used as raw material, but the price of a monthly dose of $3000 could suggest that, however pharmaceutical companies probably would charge the same amount if the base was regular straw and the patients in dire need. The analysts are hearing  the cash registers ringing out loud . It is speculated that they might make soon 5 billion a year in global annual sales and make it under the top ten drugs, no not most expensive, just highest grossing drugs.

The article mentions the meaning of the Chinese and Japanese name of Cordyceps as "Winter worm, summer plant", in Chinese it is cao = grass, but fails to mention that these names are translations of the original Tibetan name Yartsa gunbu "summer grass, winter worm". It would have been nice if Tibetan medicine gets the credit it deserves, since it was first used in Tibet. And also its first record dates to the late 15th century doctor Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorje. And what about not only a credit to the roots of this medicinal, but to Tibetan Medicine for having discovered the medicinal value of this weird organism? And once in the dream state, what about a slice of Mitsubishi Tanabe & Novartis pharma profit pie for the further development of Tibetan medicine?  

Interestingly, no mentioning in the article of Ciclosporin, another famous drug that has been developed from Cordyceps, but another species Cordyceps subsessilis. Ciclosporin, is used to suppress immune reaction after organ transplants, a procedure not possible without immuno-suppression. It was originally derived from Tolypocladium inflatum and only later recognized as the true anamorph [meaning an asexually often mold like state] of C. subsessilis by Cornell mycologist Kathy Hodge and others.

Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorje in a contemporary Yartsa Gunbu Thangka:

The Men-tsee-khang webpage reports about Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorje

Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjee was born to Rigzin Phuntsok and the daughter of Kunkyen Tashi Namgyal in the Earth Sheep year. He learned Buddhist philosophy and medicine from many renowned scholars and, at the age of 16, he wrote Manngag-Jewa-Ringsel (Pith Instructions, Relics in Crores, [better translated as "Instructions on a Myriad of Medicines"]) and many other treatises. He was the founder of the Zurlug tradition of Tibetan medicine. Later, his grandson Zurkhar Lodoe Gyalpo wrote a commentary on rGyud-bzhi called Mepoi Zallung (Oral Instructions of my Forefathers).

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: "Tibet's Herbal Viagra , 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.

Freshly collected Bu karpo I encountered in a village near Draksum Tso. Here the white Yartsa Gunbu being dried on a threshold.
Bu Karpo deserves its own entry at some point. I have encountered it several times in Kongpo where it seems endemic.



I really loved our homestay with a Tibetan family who took us matsutake (Tricholoma matsutake) hunting in their evergreen oak woods on the foot of the majestic 7500m high Gyala Pelri. When back home we cooked up several mushroom species and shared our cooking. I still got to finish the report, but already uploaded 50 pics or so.

Also we found so many orchids that I had to make an orchid page which so far has 23 species including stunning lady slipper orchids Cypripedium (C. tibeticum, C.himalaicum, C.flavum and C. guttatum) and gorgeous Habenarias.


Cypripedium himalaicum on Serkim La                                    Habenaria arietina flowering in Pome / Bomi

Many more pictures are to viewed on my web pages from this summer's Floral & Fungal Foray to Tibet.

The June 9/10, 2010 International conference on Ophiocordyceps sinensis (冬虫夏草, Yartsa Gunbu, Caterpillar fungus) hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and co-sponsored by the Center of Grassland Monitoring and Management and WWF was held in Xining, Qinghai Province PRC. Down below some articles to download.

Here my updated conference contribution for downloading:

Furthermore, here for download a recently published PDF article on Cordyceps sinensis in somewhat a travelogue form with focus on Yartsa gunbu in Northwest Yunnan. Here the full reference:

Winkler, D. 2010. Cordyceps sinensis - A precious parasitic fungus infecting Tibet.
In: Field Mycology 11.2: 60-67.
Download

Winkler, D. 2008. The Mushrooming Fungi Market in Tibet Exemplified by Cordyceps sinensis and Tricholoma matsutake. Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies. 4: 1-46.
Download

A paper originally co-written with Karl Ryavec in 2000, published in 2009 as 2006 [sic!] dealing with Eastern Tibet's forests, forestry, the state logging industry and issues of sustainability or the lack thereof. While I wrote about all these issues Karl used remote sensing tools analyzing Landsat satellite images of clear-cuts in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan and provided mapping on the forest areas of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau:

Ryavec, K. & Winkler D. 2006.  Logging Impacts to Forests in Tibetan Areas of Southwest China. A Case Study from Ganze Prefecture Based on 1998 Landsat TM Imagery. In: Himalaya - Journal of the Association for Nepal & Himalayan Studies 2006, vol. 26.1: 38-45,
Download

A more popular written paper on the morel industry in East Tibet with some nice pictures.
Winkler D. 2010. Morels in Eastern Tibet. Fungi 3.2: p.6-7.
Download

In general most of my articles can be found at my main web pages under Publications

I found my biggest caterpillar fungus ever in Xining!

Rongpatsa, Kandze / Ganzi County June 2, 2010