The dangerous hunt for yarsagumba is no longer paying off for Karnali’s collectors

Falling prices, declining production and the absence of Chinese buyers are squeezing communities that have long depended on the prized fungus.

It has been two decades since Netra Bahadur Giri from Barekot Rural Municipality in Jajarkot began travelling to the high-altitude pastures of Dolpa to collect yarsagumba, a prized medicinal fungus. In the third week of May this year, he travelled for four days with his wife Goma and their two sons to Kagmara pasture to collect the fungus.