Sometimes I get a little 'involved' in my Uni subjects, especially where traditional Herbal remedies are concerned. The scientist in me leaps to reductivism and isolating active compounds/constituents, the artist in me can at least grudgingly admit to the potentially synergistic qualities of the whole plant, -an orchestra of compounds if you will, operating together utilizing pathways we may not yet have discovered. The Human in me is saddened and perplexed by the greed of Capitalism and the unthinking, profiteering maelstrom that it unleashes upon some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable Indigenous communities. As a result, I have spent 2 days answering a relatively simple question.
In case you're wondering, this little dude is the Tibetan Body Snatcher .
Cordyceps Sinensis is a parasitic fungus that attacks the larvae of the Ghost Moth and basically devours it over a 5 month period. After the spring rains, said fungus pops out of the (now dead) larvae's head with its fruiting body. This macabre little fungus has been called 'Tibetan Viagra', and it claims to cure pretty much everything. It sells for US $10 million a tonne.
Rural Bhutanese and Tibetans gather the fungus annually, and in some provinces, the sale of Cordyceps accounts for 80% of the economy, so to say that habitat preservation, regulation of gathering rights, sustainability of infrastructure and harvest, and availability to local indigenous gatherers is important, may be the understatement of the millenium.
The question: Follow this link to see one example of this
medicinal food being sold commercially. Do you think indigenous knowledge
of medicinal foods should be commercialised like this?
THE ANSWER...
In 400BC Hippocrates
recommended a brew made from Willow for labour pains. In 1763 an English
clergyman observed the therapeutic effects of ground Willow bark on parishioners
with rheumatic fever. Fast forward to 1897, -acetyl salicylic acid is isolated
and aspirin is born [1]. Similarly. Cordyceps has been known and
utilised for 2000 years, from the Tang Dynasty, through reductive scientific
constituent research [2] to laboratory culturing [3] and
finally to world-wide availability and the questionable marketing that goes
with it [4][5]. To me, the key phrase in the question posed is ‘like this’. Dragon Herbs, for example,
include an ‘educational video’ (music composed by the store owner) of
beautifully attired Bhutanese reverently extracting cordyceps amongst
wildflowers and mist [6]. Quite apart from the fact that elsewhere
on the site it is stated that the company uses laboratory cultured mycelium, it is part of a $15 billion US
industry (AU $1.8 billion) [7] that is largely concerned with
profiteering and that does not take into account the indigenous people, ecology
or sustainability of continually increasing harvest due to skyrocketing demand.
Although the annual harvest of Cordyceps has provided the rural people of Tibet
with an enormous economic boost [8], it has come at great cost. C.Sinensis biomass has declined over the
last 20 years by 70-97% [9] and despite Tibetan Government
regulation, retailers, brokers and poachers still make 5-10 times more profit
than the indigenous Cordyceps gatherers [8]. In addition, lack of
infrastructure for sustainable harvesting may result in environmental
degradation, long-term negative economic impact [10] and
sociocultural devastation, up to and including looting and murder [11].
So, although I am not against development of indigenous medicinal foods per se,
I fail to see how the kind of ‘magical bucolic purity’ pedalled by Dragon herbs
does any kind of good for the Bhutanese or Tibetan Cordyceps gatherers, their
environment or their country. What I see is blatant wolfish Capitalism wearing
Yak’s clothing.
2.2. Lull, C., Wichers, H.J., Savelleoul, H.F. (2005).
Anti-inflammatory and immunodilating properties of fungal metabolites. Mediators of inflammation, 2. 63-80
3. 3. Kunwar, A.M., Burlakoti, C., Chowdhary, C.L.
& Bussman, R.W. (2010). Medicinal Plants in Farwest Nepal: Indigenous Uses
and Pharmacological Validity. Medicinal
and Aromatic Plant Science and Biotechnology, 4(1), 28-42
5.5. purica.com/products/cordyceps
6. 6. httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p08kpTrAGWY
7. 7. The health
benefits of traditional Chinese plant medicines: weighing the scientific
evidence: a report for the Rural Industries Research and Development
Corporation. By
Graeme.E.Thomson. Barton, A.C.T, RIROC 2007
8. 8. Winkler, D. (2008). Yartsa Gunbu (Cordyceps sinensis) and the Fungal Commodification of
Tibet’s Rural Economy. Economic Botany,
62(3), 291-305
9.9. Stone, R. (2008). Last stand for the body
snatcher of the Himalayas. Science 322:
1182 doi: 10.1126/science.322.5905.1182
