- Yarsa gunbu, better known outside Nepal as the Himalayan Viagra, accounts for two-fifths of the country’s non-timber exports.
- Every year, hundreds of thousands of Nepalis head for the hilly regions to harvest this fungus-mummified caterpillar larvae from the wild, leaving schools, farms and entire villages deserted.
- A new study analyzing domestic news coverage of yarsa gunbu has found that much of the reporting focuses on the scale of the harvest and the exorbitant prices that the commodity can fetch.
- The study authors have called on the media to emphasize other aspects of the yarsa gunbu trade, including the ecological cost from harvesting, and the social cost when schools are bereft of teachers.
KATHMANDU — From March to June every year, the hottest news from some of the hilly regions of Nepal revolves around one theme: yarsa gunbu, also known as yarsagumba or caterpillar fungus, and touted around the world as Himalayan Viagra.
During the peak season, settlements turn into ghost villages as residents young and old move to higher grounds in search of the prized Ophiocordyceps sinensis. Considered a potent tonic in traditional Chinese medicine, yarsa gunbu can at times fetch a higher price per gram than gold.
Nepal’s media closely covers issues related to harvesting of the fungus. And, according to a recent study on how media outlets in Nepal portray yarsa gunbu, stories about the potential impacts of climate change on the fungus are also gaining traction: “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,” reads one report.
“We can see that issues related to yarsa gunbu are widely covered by media outlets in Nepal,” says Sanjeev Poudel, a researcher at the Global Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies in Kathmandu and the lead author of a recent study on media coverage of the species.
But the media also falls short when it comes to covering issues related to policy gaps and challenges related to the species, categorized on the IUCN Red List as vulnerable to extinction.
“They tend to focus on resource conflict-related issues and publish editorials on this species to show its importance,” Poudel says.
Poudel and his team also found that outside of the harvest season, media outlets tend to ignore the caterpillar fungus.
A crucial harvest
Yarsa gunbu, a dark brown stalk-like fruiting body typically measures a few centimeters long. It forms after the fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis germinates in the living larva of the Himalayan bat moth caterpillar (Hepialus armonicanus), kills it and mummifies it.
In an effort to conserve the species, which is found only in high-altitude grasslands of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau, Nepal’s government imposed a ban on yarsa gunbu collection and trade in 1995. But in 2001 it lifted a ban on its harvest and sale, highlighting how important the harvest is for the local economy. Collectors, who spend months in high-altitude grasslands, pay a royalty to municipal governments, for whom the money represents a big chunk of their annual revenue. For the collectors, the money they earn from sales helps them buy essentials for their families and send their children to school.
“Around 41% of the money Nepal earns through exports of non-timber products comes from the export of yarsa gunbu. This shows how important it is for Nepal,” says Uttam Babu Shrestha, a co-author of the study also from the Global Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, who has carried out extensive research on different aspects of yarsa gunbu.
“No other resource in Nepal is collected at this scale. Almost 300,000 people are involved in the collection of yarsa gunbu in Nepal every year,” Shrestha adds.
“Yarsa gunbu has become a global commodity these days as there’s a huge global market for it,” says botanist Ram Prasad Chaudhary, professor emeritus at Tribhuvan University, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Its importance is growing by the day for Nepal.”
As part of the study, the authors analyzed 3,777 keywords mentioned in 681 news reports in seven national newspapers across Nepal between 2008 and 2021. They categorized the keywords into eight themes to ascertain how the media reports issues such as conservation, harvesting, and the gaps in caterpillar fungus policy and research.
The authors found that around a quarter of the keywords in the news reports covered could be categorized under the theme “impacts of yarsa gunbu harvesting,” such as the emptying of villages and schools and abandonment of farmland as the search for the fungus gets underway.
This was followed by trade (15.5%); information, encompassing geographical, economic and scientific (15.35%); governance, including revenue and its collection (14.21%); and harvesting (14.05%). The least number of keywords pertained to the themes of challenges faced by harvesters (5.85%); policy gaps, in terms of effectiveness of polices and their implementation (3.97%); and institutional and responses, which are related to security (3.17%).
“This shows that coverage is great in terms of trade — media outlets report regularly on the quantity of yarsa gumba harvested, bought and sold,” Poudel says. “But it is limited when it comes to the government response. For example, when schools are deserted during the harvest season, news reports don’t talk much about the kind of policies local education officials need to adopt to help the students continue learning.”
Another issue that doesn’t receive a lot of coverage is the ecological cost of collecting yarsa gunbu, Shrestha says. “We all are talking about economic, social economic transformation, but not talking about the costs,” he adds.
The collectors spend weeks, sometimes even months, up in the high grasslands where they cut trees such as silver firs to cook and to keep warm, Shrestha says. “In addition to that, they trample pristine grassland that takes a lot of time to regenerate, especially when the soil is compacted,” he says, adding there’s also the problem of solid waste management and impact on wildlife.
“Our findings suggest that the media has not covered the agenda of harvesters’ camp management, availability of clean drinking water and toilets for harvesters,” the study says.
It also found that interest in the caterpillar fungus peaked or declined corresponding with major events during the harvest season. For example, in 2014 a harvester was killed by police during a protest in Dolpa district over local rights to revenue from the caterpillar fungus. In 2009, harvesters considered “non-local” were killed in the district of Manang.
“The media is very good at reporting these conflict and murder stories,” Poudel says. Stories related to climate change and its impacts, especially as the number of harvesters increases every year, are also gaining traction, he says. The study says newspaper stories seem to be based on an underlying common belief that caterpillar fungus production is linked with rates of snowfall and rainfall before the harvesting season.
The researchers didn’t include international publications’ coverage in their analysis, but Shrestha says there’s a pattern there too: foreign media tend to highlight yarsa gunbu as the “Himalayan Viagra” and focus on its massive harvesting and the prices it fetches.
The major takeaway from the study for media outlets, both domestic and international, is the need to explore new angles such as taboos related to the yarsa gunbu trade, the intersection with the political economy, and the ecological costs of the harvest, Shrestha says. Although it’s legal to harvest yarsa gunbu in Nepal, people still get arrested for possessing it probably because of its high market value, he adds.
The ecological costs should also be reported to raise awareness of these issues among the general population. Such reports could prompt the government to implement measures to minimize damage to the environment and promote sustainable harvesting, Shrestha says.
“I also think that the media should prioritize reports that promote sustainable harvesting of yarsa gunbu,” says Chaudhary. “It shouldn’t also forget about the local environmental concerns and striking a balance with people’s livelihoods.”
Banner image: A cordycep dealer in Tibet. Yarsa gunbu are found only in high-altitude grasslands of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau. Image by Rosino via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Citation:
Poudel, S., Shrestha, U. B., Pandit, R., & Dhital, K. R. (2022). Communicating conservation: How do the Nepalese print media portray caterpillar fungus? An analysis of newspaper coverage from 2008-2021. Heliyon, 8(9). doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10439
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