Mushroom wars, Nepalese style.

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This sort of thing:

A villager was shot dead in Nepal and three others were injured in clashes over a rare and valuable fungus coveted for its reputed aphrodisiac qualities, an official said.

Mugu district chief Keshab Raj Sharma said a gang of 10 to 12 looters was shooting "indiscriminately" on Wednesday night, and added that locals claimed the gang had stolen their harvest.

But when the mushroom in question sells for up to $78,000 per pound....

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Friday Fungus: wild mushrooms and the tragedy of the commons

You've got dressed up, hired a cab and are safely seated in that special restaurant for your special occasion. Scanning down the menu your eyes fall on a "mosaic of chicken, wild mushrooms and pistachio nuts - an elegant combination of woody, autumnal flavours packed into a chunky terrine". If you're me, you leap as the prospect of wild mushrooms and place the order for your starter. What you don't do is ask how those wild mushrooms arrived at a posh restaurant in Ilkley. Perhaps it's time to start asking - for the sake of our woodlands and for the sake of us continuing to enjoy the fabulous flavours of those wild mushrooms blessing our palettes.

We're familiar with the tragedy of the commons (although it is often misrepresented):

...each human exploiter of the common was guided by self-interest. At the point when the carrying capacity of the commons was fully reached, a herdsman might ask himself, “Should I add another animal to my herd?” Because the herdsman owned his animals, the gain of so doing would come solely to him. But the loss incurred by overloading the pasture would be “commonized” among all the herdsmen. Because the privatized gain would exceed his share of the commonized loss, a self-seeking herdsman would add another animal to his herd. And another. And reasoning in the same way, so would all the other herdsmen. Ultimately, the common property would be ruined.

So it is with wild foraging for mushrooms.

The New Forest Association (NFA) says there's growing anger over "commercial gangs" invading and filching fungi to flog to posh hotels and restaurants in back-door deals.

Experts have warned the gangs could even kill because pickers who don't know the different species are likely to take deadly toadstools and other poisonous fungi in mistake for edible and safe mushrooms.

Forestry Commission bosses have now vowed to "disrupt" commercial pickers plundering this autumn's crop - but campaigners are demanding an outright ban.

This same story is repeated across our woodlands - from Epping Forest to Ogden Water you'll see evidence of large scale mushroom gathering. How else did you think all those wild mushrooms arrived in all those restaurants? And the easy result of authorities is to introduce a ban:

Authorities in London's Epping Forest have been stopping and searching walkers in an attempt to catch foragers who are stripping the woodland of fungi.

Forest keepers are trying to crack down on the harmful practice after gangs of foragers descended on the woodland in vans to cart away hauls of mushrooms which are then sold to restaurants.

The plants can fetch up to £50 per kilo as the trend for foraged food in upmarket restaurants in London and around the country has sent demand soaring.

The problem is that, as we know too well, a ban would simply drive up the price and make it worth the while to carry on foraging (the downside risk is probably pretty small). Even if we banned restaurants from selling wild mushrooms - imagine the foodie cries of pain - there's still be a market at the restaurant backdoor at an even higher price.

Instead of banning foraging would it not be more sensible (and lucrative) for places like Epping Forest and the New Forest to auction off the rights to crop the mushrooms? Trust me, if you've forked out thousands of quid for something you'll be making really sure people don't arrive and steal it from you. The owners of the rights would back up the local keepers and wardens to stop the poaching of fungi - we'd have an industry interested in a sustainable product rather than a collection of uncontrolled exploiters of common rights.

Despite this, I'll bet you that the choices of authorities will be the ban not the licence.
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Himalayan viagra - an odd story of libido, caterpillars and mushrooms

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This is the tale of Ophiocordyceps sinesis or, if you're more poetic, the Mysterious Caterpillar Mushroom or even, as the Chinese name it - Winter Worm, Summer Grass:

It preys specifically on the larvae of several species of ghost moths in the Thitarodes genus. Spores infect the larvae while they live underground before pupating. The spores germinate and mycelium grows, killing and mummifying the larva/caterpillar. Eventually a fruiting body grows from the mummified larva and pops above ground, reminiscent of something from an awesome science fiction movie. 

So there you have it - a weird mushroom that grows from out of a dead caterpillar's head. And the Chinese can't get enough of it because it is believed to do great things for the immune system and (hence the Himalayan viagra tag) treat erectile dysfunction. And, not surprisingly, the result is that this wonderful little ecosystem is threatened by overharvesting:

“There is a similar trend in other Himalayan countries, such as China, India and Bhutan,” says Liu Xingzhong, a mycologist in the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Microbiology in Beijing. On the Tibetan plateau, for instance, the fungus harvest per unit area has dropped by 10 to 30 percent compared with three decades ago....

In one respect, this problem is a reflection of how the myths of libido are so rapacious. This little mushroom may not be as grand as a rhino or as magnificent as a tiger but its decline is for the same reason - the sex drive of Chinese men. But, just as with those great wild mammals, the heart of the problem is the tragedy of the commons - up on the Tibetan plateau no-one owns the places where the caterpillars and their mycological hosts do their thing. And the result is overharvesting and fights over 'territory'. As collectively-owned places, Chinese national parks provide no incentive to limit either the amounts harvested or the numbers of harvesters.

 

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Politics and the tragedy of the commons

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In the context of Hardin's classic 'Tragedy of the Commons' essay, I was struck by the truth of this observation:

One thing that Hardin overlooked is that the political process often replicates the same economic dynamic that encourages the tragedy of the commons -- a dynamic fostered by the ability to capture concentrated benefits while dispersing the costs. Like the herder who has an incentive to put out yet one more animal to graze, each interest group has every incentive to seek special benefits through the political process, while dispersing the costs of providing those benefits to the public at large. Just as no herder has adequate incentive to withhold from grazing one more animal, no interest group has adequate incentive to forego its turn to obtain concentrated benefits at public expense. No interest group has adequate incentive to put the interests of the whole ahead of the interests of the few. The logic of collective action discourages investments in sound public policy just as it discourages investments in sound ecological stewardship.

The rest of the article is worth a read and addresses the importance of property rights in driving environmental improvement and conservation.

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