"Medicinal Herbs"

I was browsing through Tibetan language blogs, and I came across this brief post by sKar Mig (????????????????????) expressing concern about the ecological implications of excessive digging of medicinal herbs on the Tibetan Plateau. Over the years, the number of Tibetan families depending on the harvest of herbs, mainlyYartsa Gunbu (????????????????? / also known as caterpillar fungus or Cordyceps sinensis), has been growing throughout the TIbetan Plateau, mainly in the south and the east. Daniel Winkler's website has lots of useful information and pictures related to mushrooms of the Tibetan Plateau. I met Daniel Winkler last year at UBC, where he did a presentation on "The Mushrooming Fungi Market on the Tibetan Plateau". I asked him about the ecological sustainability of Yartsa Gumbu, and he did not seem too worried about it because data available to him show that so far both the harvest and growth of cordiceps around the plateau have been favorable.

While there seems to be no systematic study that looks at the question of the ecological sustainability of livelihood based on yartsa gunbu, informed people like Professor Emily Yeh are concerned about the long term social and economic risks associated with excessive reliance on the yartsa gunbu trade. Today a significant proportion of the Tibetan population depend on collection and sale of cordyceps. What if this livelihood becomes impossible for whatever reason (legal bans/ecological/etc/)?

Here are the Image of the original Tibetan blog post and its English translation:



This year again people are digging the ground everywhere on the Tibetan Plateau . Since numerous Tibetans, Chinese as well as Muslims (harvesters) have been digging out the earth to gain medical herbs for decades. If this continues, severe damage in the ecosystem of the region will occur. It is urgent that the Government and the informed people do something to avert such a situation.