Tricky business behind the highly priced fungus

Locally known as Yartsa Gonbub (direct translation: Yartsa- grass in summer and Gonbob- worm during winter) has been known to the highlander since their childhood is how a 65 year old Yak herder responses if someone happens to ask him about the fungus. By then it was just a fungus with not much economical value, hardly fetching ngultrum ten per piece and was abundantly found. But the present generation highlander has a different story to be unfolded. At present, after the legalization of fungus collection from year 2004 with the Royal Kasho, every succeeding year, people are hardly able to find few numbers of fungus per day which was once known to be collected in a bucket.

After the legalization, marketing of Ophiocordcep sinensis (Fungus) has been done through open auctioning process with technical guidance from department of agricultural marketing and cooperatives.  Every succeeding year, price of the fungus started shooting up from few hundred thousand to a million ngultrum attracting eye of every collectors.

Being one of the highly priced non wood forest produce (Fungus), during its auctioning process despite the strict regulation by the law enforcer to overcome any illegal means of selling, both buyer and sellers resort in disposing their 50% of the collected fungus though means of illegal channel. Seller opt for illegal selling as they are offered better price by the buyer who has an advantage of getting better quality fungus without going via hassle bidding process.

Laws cannot be broken but twisted is vividly witnessed during the cordycep business. Some bidders buy fungus from particular auctioning yard at low price and then when it comes to next auctioning yard, with the help of some collectors they re-auction their fungus. In re-auction the same bidder keeps on bidding higher price on their fungus, so that at the end he/she simply earns more than what they have actually paid in initial buying from the previous auction yard.  On other hand, bidders buy low quality fungus from auction yard to get export permit from the concerned agencies but in reality they export better quality fungus bought illegally from the buyer without any royalty to government with the export permit obtained for low quality fungus during the auction.

Most of the Cordycep collectors are illiterate  who are herders and a farmers but when it comes to trade, they are much more smarter than what law enforcer usually anticipate. Collectors hardly produce half of their collection in front of the recording officials since its mandatory to legally register the amount of fungus they have collected during a month long collection period. Rest are disposed through illegal trade either within the country or across the northern border. 

Story about why dog lift their legs while peeing

Once upon a time, there lived a community comprising of different animals both wild and domesticated. Other than Sunday, every animal use to be busy working to make their decent living. During non working days there use to be a games competition among different races of animal. Every animal had their own expertise when it was about games; Kangaroo always stood first in sac race since they are good at hopping and Dog in running.  On fine summer morning, Mr. Dog went on for jogging towards other nearby settlement and he did not miss to see whatever that comes by on his way.  While he was resting on the huge stone on way back to home he saw a gigantic Hare walking near the ruin of unstable wall ready to fall at any time. Suddenly from nowhere, gust of wind struck and the wall was falling in direction of the Hare. Mr. Dog was watching helplessly thinking that the falling wall will crash the Hare but something unexpected occurred. Hare immediately lifted one of his hind legs against the falling wall and stopped the wall from crashing over him.

After witnessing the incident, Mr. Dog got inspired and motivated by what Hare has done. From that day onward  whenever dog pees, be it against wall or any other object, he started lifting his leg like that of Hare in hope of blocking the wall if it happen to fall over him.  Prior to this incident dogs use to pee like any other animal without lifting one of their hind legs. 

2008 (HISTORY) Vs 2013 (FUTURE)

 

2008 - History

“POLITICS is no less than salty water that can never quench one’s thirst; the more you drink the more you get thirsty” is how I would prefer to define if some happen to ask me about my view on politics. No more than five years ago, politics has gained its momentum in our small agrarian society with emergence of two political parties to take forward a gift of constitutional democracy. Despite farsighted visionary of our monarch, public where never confident enough to accept new changes in our system because of the visible corrupted environs of our immediate neighbor which has been and being ruled by the political parties for several decades.

By virtue of our governmental system since its initiation from 17^th century, Bhutanese people have been environmentally and psychologically trained to serve without much right to question the government on its accountability and transparency. Lack of right to information and limited freedom of speech made public to be susceptible and drifted to illusion of what by then two political parties has campaigned.

Illusion like fear of getting every public property privatized had PDP won the election and DPT convincing public through their party’s basis on equity and justice to all have resulted to landslide victory by taking over 45 seats out of 47 by DPT in 2008 general election.

Gaining political ticket to rule the country for past 5 years must have been a surprise to most of the MP’s who have never dream of wearing an orange and blue colored scarf with patangs (Honorary sword) dangling from their waist, at least when they were as a school going children or a decent civil servant.

Regardless of politically immature scenario, people who have cast their votes to form Government had a higher expectation from their representatives (MP’s) to at least fulfill what they have uttered during their campaign. But sadly some of the promises went on as lip services which were just mentioned to pursue a precious vote from innocent public.

Parliament entirely outnumbered by the member of ruling party for past five years, it didn’t seem much of like a Constitutional Democracy rather than that of same old system of Government ran by bunch of high ranked officials, who has been running the government for more than decades prior to formation of Constitutional Democracy. 

2013 - Future

Although literally I am not at all interested in politics, hearing on talks about current political scenario is unavoidable.  Age, occupation and gender status have no bar over discussing about politics, a game of power that can be enjoyed for five year, provided the ticket.

Despite their endeavor none of the three aspiring new political parties could make through ever held primary round election to gain a ticket for general round. More or less particular incident reflects that Bhutanese society is still not in position to accept the changes, in spite of the fact that we live in 21^st century, an era of Democracy.

Constitutionally in our political system, the coalition of parties are not entertained formally but the visible truth is that parties does practice the act of coalition with justification to make good foundation of democracy in the interest of our future generation. Hope justification are validated.

Topographically our country has been fragmented in to different scattered regions and localities due to the rugged mountainous areas. But surprisingly our country seems to be getting politically fragmented into Western and Eastern region concurred by PDP and PDT respectively, after looking at the pattern of the vote cast during primary round of election. 

With due general round election on 13^th July, 2013, logically, DPT started its campaign from Western region unlike of his initial practice of campaigning from Sharchog Khorlo Sebgey(Eight eastern region), to convince the people of west emphasizing on towards self reliance with equity and justice as their party manifesto.

Meanwhile, PDP welcomed and invited some of the prominent figures of the parties which could not make through primary round of election but who have won the maximum votes from their respective constituencies from Eastern region, so as to give neck to neck competition with DPT dominated region or constituencies.

13^th July, 2013 – Future to decide history

What is yet to come is a future and it’s just a matter of time that decides the history. With no more than fortnight to cast our gifted vote for general election, it’s entirely dependent on us to make our future to whether or not to have a worthy history to be recited by younger generation through electing people "who can serve us and not the one whom we have to serve."

So, think twice before you cast your vote, EVM button is no less than like a nuclear power plants, provided if you use cautiously it ‘ll serve as good source of clean energy, if not it ‘ll destroy the mankind for generation to generation.  

Experience is not gained over night

It’s a narration of what I have experienced as a team leader for the first time after joining the civil service…..

Being only forestry researcher at Renewal Natural Resources –Research and Development Centre (RNR-RDC) Wengkhar, I am entrusted with pivotal responsibility to lead any research activities under our jurisdiction. Any RNR related research in Eastern region is mandatory to be led by our organisation despite five regional Research and Development centres in Bhutan.

After joining Wengkhar, for first several weeks I spent my office hours on rummaging the old files beautifully kept in a wooden bookshelf erected left side of the door leading to my revolving chair and an Acer desktop in front of it. Sitting and referring old documents and research activities done by my predecessors wasn’t of much problem to me as it just involved of little bit of understanding and note-taking for my own benefit to run  this office in capacity of new researcher. 

Although formally I joined office on 13^th February, 2013, I was lucky enough to be nominated for GIS and RS training jointly organised by CoRRB and ICIMOD at Thimphu for two weeks. Training was more or less like a spoon feeding program by the resource person, even then at least trainees were made familiar with the software. Back at my office I tried my best to explore and work with the particular software but I was hardly able to get in to it. Particular moment vividly depict that how ineffective the training was for me and made me feel how inefficient I was despite of ten days training. It made me feel low about myself and consulted the GIS focal person of our office. But to my surprise he brought hope on me by sharing challenges one must encounter in exploring GIS software for first hand user and advising me to keep on exploring using local data with his helping hand whenever I am in need of it. March month passed away attending training, reviewing and preparing work plan for the fiscal year 2012 to 2013.

On month of April, I was deputed to carry out the study on species composition of the Ompo-ri community forest located at Deothang, Samdrupjongkhar. Although I have participated in such filed data collection work for several times prior to joining this research centre as an active team member. But this time it was my responsibility to lead the team rather than usual practice of following others. Before going for actual filed work, I made myself equipped by referring several scientific paper published online to formulate the methodology for upcoming field work. And anticipated it shouldn’t be of much problem to execute in field because I thought it is just a matter of knowing how to operate the devices in a field with identification of several species within a plot.

After reaching at research site and detail site inspection, I was bit confused in site selection to layout transect because the area was totally different than what I have anticipated as it comprised of several hillocks of southern foothill. Regardless of confusion, somehow I managed to select the hill that has a highest variation on altitudinal gradient with different aspect to represent the entire area.

Next day a team comprising of geog forest extension officer, representatives from community forest management group (CFMG) was following my instruction on how to carry out the field work. Everything was up to expectation until we finished laying out of our first plot using metre tapes, compass, clino-meter and GPS, etc. Research site comprised of broadleaf of subtropical forest with very rich plant diversity. We started with measuring of Height and DBH of the trees that are within the plot by shooting Hipso-meter to the Transponder placed at the breast height of the targeted tree for calculating height and using dia-meter tape for DBH. These two measurements using high tech instruments were to fill up second and third columns of data collection form and the most important was to fill up the first column which included the name of species. By the virtue of the vegetation type, trees were very tall with clean boles, majestically erected towards the open sky competing for sunlight. It was almost near to impossible to identify and collect sample specimens for further identification by the expertise from such trees and I was almost at verge of losing the hope. But I was fortunate to have 74 years old and a middle age man from the locality who was CFMG member in my team. So as a team me and geog forest extension officer manage to do all recording and device using part. Whereby an old man identified species for us with local name and a middle age man collected samples for us by using his climbing tactics. Then we made the herbarium of those collected samples using a herbarium press that was carried with us. Although identification of undergrowth were not as challenging as that of trees but collecting of samples was much easier.

After a tedious day work inside the forest in spite of very little energy left in me, at the evening back at my halting place I spent for three to four hours digitizing the collected samples under the brightness of the electric bulb.  When it’s time to go to bed, I used to be fully exhausted both physically and mentally hardly willing to eat anything. 

Data collection in a field

This is the moment when I have realised that experience is never gained over night and pursuing college and gaining degree with first rank is not the end of learning, in fact it’s just the stepping stone towards exploring real knowledge. And I am thankful to those local people and fellow mates for making this work a successful despite  several challenges.