Transcript


CAMPBELL: Across Bhutan, thousands are making this journey. They’re heading to the high alpine pastures where, if luck’s with you, you can strike it rich. This is not a quest for gold, but for something almost as valuable. It’s… well… it’s half mushroom, half monster.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “It’s a fungus that infects and kills insects”.

CAMPBELL: “Right so it gets inside of them and takes over them?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “It certainly does that in a horrible way”.

CAMPBELL: Dr Nigel Hywel-Jones is a British biologist.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “If you’ve seen Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien, it’s just like that and just like John Hurt bursting out of the stomach routine, that’s what this particular fungus does”.

CAMPBELL: “Right, but they are healthy are they?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Ah not for the insect, no”.

CAMPBELL: “But for humans?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “But they are for humans, yeah”.

CAMPBELL: He’s been trekking into the mountains to study the fungus for 10 years.

“So they really only grow right up there on top of the mountain?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Right up. I mean at the moment we’re only about 2,500 metres but when we get up to my research site we’ll be past 5,000 metres”.

ERIC CAMPBELL: “Oh I’m looking forward to it”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Really?” (laughing)

CAMPBELL: The track snakes along Bhutan’s long mountainous border with Tibet. Before China’s invasion in 1950, there was a booming cross border trade, even a tax collection house.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “This building behind us is not used anymore because there’s no diplomatic links now between Tibet and Bhutan which is a pity because the people, you know they’re quite often related”.

CAMPBELL: But soaring world demand for traditional medicine has created a huge illegal trade. Until recently, Bhutanese weren’t allowed to collect this abominable mushroom, but local prices of up to $8,000 a kilogram have seen people swarming up from both sides of the border.

“Well this is where the trail forks in two, the top track heads straight to Tibet, just two hours walk away though most people who use it are smugglers coming at night. There’s no actual border post there but always the chance of unfriendly Chinese soldiers”.

What we do know about the Tibetan side is that the scramble for the fungus has been even more intense. Two towns even had a pitched gun battle that left eight dead and there are fears the resource could be wiped out. That’s something Bhutan is hoping to avoid.

Bhutan prides itself on being a place of peace and harmony and strict regulations. Fighting is mostly left to the wildlife. Maintaining their countries rich biodiversity, from marmots to mushrooms, is one of their biggest priorities.
So in 2002 the government decided to look at ways to control the trade. As one of the world’s foremost experts on the fungus, Dr Hywel-Jones was asked how to manage it sustainably.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: [Research scientist] “That’s what we’re all trying to do, is put all of this knowledge together and then find a way of providing advice to the locals on how they can sustainably collect it and not over collect and not lose this little source of income for the people in the mountains”.

CAMPBELL: He advised the government to give collecting permits to the local nomads. That way they’d have a stake in protecting the resource as well as making money. The track has once again turned into a busy highway with pony trains bringing food and other supplies to fungus collectors in the mountains.

We’ve been warned it’s a tough journey and our path could be blocked by snow – none of which fazes our companion. In rain, snow or mud he always treks in sandals.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “It’s certainly an unusual pursuit. To be honest I feel very fortunate of what’s happened. I’ve been able to come here for the last ten years or so, working with the government, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Renewable Natural Resources on this you know really fantastically interesting project. So no, I feel privileged”.

CAMPBELL: The idea is not just to protect the fungus but to make sure the benefits can be spread far and wide. Bhutan has long regarded natural medicine as a national treasure.

“They’re a long way from the doctors aren’t they?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “They are a long way to the doctors, yeah and this is what people have relied upon in the past is traditional medicines throughout the whole of Bhutan but especially up here in the mountains. Bhutan has even been called the land of southern medicines by the Tibetans because they can get all of the kind of plants that they can’t get in Tibet”.

CAMPBELL: His project has been a logistical challenge, if not a nightmare. There are no roads here, just the tracks made by traders and nomads over centuries. It takes us a long time to acclimatise to the sometimes painfully thin air. The nomads have no such problems, they make the journey each spring. As the snow melts they move to the high pastures to fatten their yaks after the long winter.

Over time, they found that some pastures made the yaks recover faster.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “You know these people are incredibly good naturalists. You know they’re not scientists, they’re not taxonomists but they go and have a look, what is different about this area than that area? And it seems that they started noticing these little brown twigs growing up out of the ground and the yaks were feeding on these and of course then the yak herders, you know empirical science I guess, started taking it themselves and found that they had better energy up in the mountains for walking and so forth. So that is how people traditionally believe that they got to know about this”.

CAMPBELL: As we’re heading up, some are already heading down with the first trophies of the season. This trader is proud to show us his collection, kept strangely enough in an Anzac biscuits tin.

“Oh my goodness! That is a good haul!”

So this is what all the fuss is about. The scientific name is cordyceps sinesis. They look rather like mummified worms, but they’re sure to fetch a high price at the town auctions.

INTERPRETER: “How much will you get for this many cordyceps?”

TRADER: “Around 60 to 70 thousand”.

CAMPBELL: That’s about 1,500 dollars. Not bad in these parts for a few weeks work.
The toughest part of our climb is still to come. On the 7th day we prepare to cross the 5,000 metre pass, but first, as always for the doctor, a nomad tent beckons.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “What I’ve found wherever we’re are walking in the mountains and you come across a tent like this, you can always come in, get some nice hospitality, get a nice hot cup of suja and then be on your way again”.

CAMPBELL: But the news from this family is not what he wants to hear. The last time they crossed the pass, the other side was blocked by heavy snow.

TRADER: “This part is fine, going up to the pass but on the other side it is very steep and hard for the loaded ponies”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “The pass that we’ve got to go through, it’s clear this side, there’s a few spots of snow that we can see, but apparently the other side for the horses it’s tough and with heavy loads on, you know they can’t find their footing easily with the snow and with the ice. I think what we have to do it just go up there, see what the conditions are like”.

CAMPBELL: “We’ve come a long way Nigel”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “I know we’ve come a long way. If the worse comes to the worse we load everything up on yaks”.

CAMPBELL: There’s no choice but to try our luck and the only other way over is two days walk away.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “I always rejoice when I see prayer flags because you know you’re nearly there”.

CAMPBELL: “I can see them now”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Ah prayer flags I love you!” (out of breath)

CAMPBELL: “Five thousand metres, no more”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Hopefully from here we might even see our camp”.

CAMPBELL: As we finally reach the top, we find we needn’t have worried.

“Ah Eureka! We made it!” (out of breath)

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “We made it. Our camp site is down there”.

CAMPBELL: “So it looks all right?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “I don’t see any snow. I’m rejoicing! When the ponies catch up with us we’ll come down here, down into the bottom of the valley and I’m sorry to say Eric there is a bit of a climb back up”.

CAMPBELL: “Might be time to put your socks on Nigel”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “It would have been a bit of a tough thing if I’d had to go through the snow, but I’ve done it once before”.

CAMPBELL: “Well thank goodness it’s not there”.

It takes another two hours to reach the camp, scrambling down a thousand foot slope of loose scree. A small tent town has sprung up on the pasture, housing rangers, researchers and cordyceps collectors. But it’s late and cold. Tomorrow we’ll join the hunt.

At 5 am we wake to a blanket of snow. It’s the middle of summer but the mornings are still freezing. A short way down the valley, we find a family of nomads busy with morning chores, waiting and hoping for the snow to clear.

RINCHEN GYEM: “If it doesn’t melt, we can’t collect”.

CAMPBELL: Rinchen Gyem and her sister have left their children in a village lower down. The collecting permits are only valid for June, giving them just four short weeks to make enough to last the year.

RINCHEN GYEM: “The money was better in previous years. Now it’s getting less, because more people are coming up here to collect”.

[CHECK]: (at camp fire) “It’s time for tea”.

[CHECK]: “Come and have a cup of tea”.

CAMPBELL: The extended family shares the collecting and the profits. Conditions are tough.

RINCHEN GYEM: “In wet weather we have a lot of problems when we travel up with the yaks, and it’s hard to even make a fire and cook. It’s really difficult”.

CAMPBELL: But the rewards can be more than worth it. When the snow retreats they start the painstaking daily search. It’s not long before they find a tiny tell-tale twig poking up from the soil.
But as the hours pass, it becomes a frustrating quest. Even with the new controls on collecting, there’s tough competition.

RINCHEN GYEM: “It’s very important to look after them – otherwise, within a few years they might become extinct. If they become extinct, life could be hard. I feel angry when people come up here because there’s not enough here for everyone”.

CAMPBELL: Permits are only given to local nomads like Rinchen. City folk aren’t allowed. Kinley Tenzing is one of a small band of mountain rangers monitoring the huge alpine expanse.

KINLEY TENZING: “It is a gold rush I think. They are making lots of money with these cordyceps. When the cordyceps collection is not legalised they are with no money. Now they are very rich. They are buying lots of yaks…horses”.

CAMPBELL: He’s confident the regulations are working. In previous years hundreds of Tibetans would come to poach. This season he says he hasn’t seen a single one. That’s good news for Rinchen.

RINCHEN GYEM: “You have to have a permit. Those who don’t have a pass run away when they see the rangers”.

CAMPBELL: The locals call it ‘winter worm, summer grass’. The mature fungus scatters out spores that infect the larvae of brown moths. Underground as the infected larva turns into a caterpillar, the spore takes over. It fruits into an Alien-type creature that kills the caterpillar then bursts out of its head. Eventually this new cordyceps pokes out of the ground like a tiny twig.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “That’s the little brown shoot amongst many little brown shoots that everyone is looking for up in these hills”.

CAMPBELL: “Very hard to find”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Extremely hard to find. You see how soft the vegetation is here? I’m sorry little plant – you’re being sacrificed for ABC. Okay can you see the larvae there?”

CAMPBELL: “Mm”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “At the moment this one is immature. It’s not producing spores at the moment. This is still early June but by July it will be about the height of where the pen-knife is now. But this is really a very good specimen”.

CAMPBELL: “So you don’t want them all taken before they get to that mature stage”.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “No, you don’t. As you’ve seen these are incredibly hard to find so it’s almost impossible for the collectors to collect everything. A certain percentage will get missed and the research that the R&R is doing is to try and find how much we can allow people to collect that will still allow enough of these to reach maturity and shoot the spores, which will complete that cycle. And that’s one of the things we’ve been trying to get across to the collectors. If you collect everything today, you’re going to be rich today but your children, your grandchildren are going to be poor tomorrow”.

CAMPBELL: It’s the job of the government researchers to monitor cordyceps numbers. They do that by marking off small research plots and comparing them year to year. They rely on the nomads to leave these plots alone. This wind swept mountaintop is home for two months of the year.

[CHECK]: “So how’s things going?”

RESEARCHER: “Every day we have to go up into the research plots. And every three days we have to take the ruler and measure how they’re progressing”.

CAMPBELL: They’ve found the number of cordyceps vary each year and this season they’re down. What they don’t know yet is whether that’s due to over harvesting.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “This can’t be a three year project, you know it has to be ten, fifteen, twenty years so that we can see that whole cycle over many seasons, many cycles and determine whether it’s due to nature, whether it’s due to the fungus and the moth together or whether it is due to over collecting by the people and one thing I like is that Bhutan is the only country in the Himalayas that’s doing this kind of work. Yeah Bhutan is number one”.

CAMPBELL: Back at Rinchen’s campsite they carefully clean their meagre takings. It’s been a disappointing day.

MAN AT CAMP: “In our camp we only get about 3 pieces a day so be careful not to break the heads.

CAMPBELL: But their mood is still cheerful. Tomorrow they’ll try again.

In Nigel’s make shift laboratory, our dining tent, he shows me the bits the Chinese auction houses go wild over.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “All of that white stuff inside is just pure fungus, it is that, that the Chinese value”.

CAMPBELL: It may be all that time underground that gives cordyceps sinesis its legendary healing powers.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Some of the work that’s been done has shown that compounds in here are very powerful antibiotics because if this is resting in the soil for six months of the year doing nothing there are plenty of bacteria, fungi and other organisms that could attack that”.

CAMPBELL: “But they don’t?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “But they don’t, because then... yeah from an evolutionary point of view, the fungus has developed all kinds of compounds that are able to fight off any potential competition”.

CAMPBELL: “Right so the fungi has compounds that protect it from other nasties when it’s underground and it may be that those same compounds can protect humans from similar nasties?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Yep in a similar but different way. The scientific work that’s being done is to try and see if there is really any basis for a thousand plus years of herbal traditional medicines and so forth”.

CAMPBELL: But he’s sceptical of one supposed benefit that’s given it the nickname, Himalayan Viagra.

“So is there any particular reason why it would have the same effect as Viagra?”

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “I’ve really, I’ve no idea. I think it’s just one of these things that you know maybe from a marketing perspective they latched onto because again it’s only in the last ten or fifteen years that this has become popular, certainly in western herbal medicine. It’s more expensive than Viagra, a lot more expensive. I think it would be cheaper for somebody that needed something like that to take Viagra than this”.

CAMPBELL: Mountain nomads like Rinchen will always keep some as personal medicine. They’re convinced it’s a tonic for the heart and lungs and gives them more energy. But so far there’s not much scientific proof, just a lot of people looking for it.

To find out how cordyceps can benefit the rest of us we have to head back to the capital, Thimphu. The good news is it’s almost all downhill so it’s only going to take us four days to walk there. Bhutan’s government is serious about folk medicine. It cherishes tradition from dress to architecture, while embracing new technology. You can see that in practice at the Institute of Traditional Medicine Services.

Every day doctors prescribe free natural remedies for their patients’ ailments. Many of the flowers, roots and herbs are dried and prepared on site. The ancient recipes are kept in scrolls in the Institute library, but this is not just a throw back to the past. The philosophy here is to combine old Himalayan wisdom with Western breakthroughs.

KINGA JAMPHEL: “This is the place where we make the pills. We also make different other formulations”.

The head of the research unit, Kinga Jamphel, has a pharmacy degree from Bologna and an MBA from Adelaide.

KINGA JAMPHEL: “All we are doing is just to facilitate and improve the administration of the medicines. We are not at all disturbing the ancient system of medicine”.

CAMPBELL: “Right so you’re just using modern technology to make traditional medicine?”

KINGA JAMPHEL: “Yeah, this is just exactly so.
All of our formulations are multi-ingredient. There are some as many 35 ingredients. It’s a very complex process. There’s a synergy between all these molecules, barks, roots, leaves, flowers - all kinds - including minerals, rocks salts… all go into our medicines”.

CAMPBELL: At present they’re just keeping up with local demand. But the market’s certainly there to go international, especially with cordyceps.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “It’s become very fashionable over the last 15, 20 years in Western alternative medicine and that’s what’s driving the market to a certain extent. If people are paying 80,000 US dollars for a kilo which I saw in Hong Kong, then you know they must feel it’s doing something or they wouldn’t be spending that money”.

CAMPBELL: The Internet has hundreds of sites praising this bizarre Himalayan fungus. Despite the lack of scientific proof, millions see it as a wonder drug.

KINGA JAMPHEL: “People have been coming to us saying that they feel lethargic, and now they’re feeling strong… I have come across ladies who have said that their skin is becoming softer - even people who have come and said that their hair growth intensifies - I mean the more growth of hair. And also it has got certainly some aphrodisiac properties as well. So it has got a multiple of benefits”.

CAMPBELL: But the benefits are now being put to the test. Dr Hywel-Jones has set up a private company to look for active ingredients in herbal medicine that could be sold to pharmaceutical companies. He says it’s still too soon to be sure about cordyceps.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “Certainly the research is being done now to see are there anti cancer properties, are there properties that help the lungs, help the heart and so on. There’s a lot of results coming out but all of this work takes many many years to go through to clinical trials and that kind of thing and at the moment it’s still in the early days of that sort of research”.

CAMPBELL: And no country in the world is more suited to the task than Bhutan. It may be a small kingdom but it stretches from sub-tropical to high alpine and still has two thirds of its native forest cover.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “The biodiversity is big. So many habitats in such a small country and the potential for drug discovery I think is huge”.

CAMPBELL: For him and his Bhutanese colleagues, it’s the start of another long journey. Their dream is that Bhutan’s traditions may help the world.

DR NIGEL HYWEL-JONES: “I think there’s a lot more to be discovered. There’s no reason why in the future a small country like Bhutan cannot be like Singapore or Switzerland with you know high a tech pharmaceutical industry but with the advantage over those two countries that it’s got all that biodiversity on its doorstep to look at. And who knows what Bhutan could be giving to mankind in the future”.