In Search of Yarsagumba: A Short Documentary

After watching this short documentary "In Search of Yarsagumba" by Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Biosources, I could not remain without writing this blog post. I heard about a mystical medicinal power of Yarsagumba for the first time when I was in my middle school. But, I had no clue about how it looks like, how it test, and whether it has real medicinal properties! I didn't bother much myself to know more about this mysterious plant. It didn't catch my attention, in fact not only mine but majority of Nepalese people, until the Maoist armed conflict reached its peak. The plant came to controversy and took headlines of newspaper/TV not because of its biological properties but its use by Maoist to fund their civil war. This highly prized plant also caught media's attention due to the reports of conflicts between local collector and outside in the harvest time. Recently, Yarsagumba is near to the edge of the extinction due to overharvesting in Nepal (I guess in Tibet too). Local people do not have scientific knowledge and the government too does not have any program to educate people for its sustainable utilization.