"喜馬拉雅偉哥"日漸稀缺 氣候變化惹的禍

BAGDANDA, Nepal — From a pasture high in the Himalayas, Tulsingh Rokaya, 55, a shepherd, watched for years as the number of itinerant harvesters swelled.

尼泊爾巴格丹達——來自喜馬拉雅山脈一個高原牧場的55歲牧民圖爾辛格·羅卡亞(Tulsingh Rokaya)，多年來眼睜睜地看着流動採摘者的人數在不斷壯大。

They came in search of what is known as caterpillar fungus, or yarsagumba in Nepali. A parasitic fungus, it forms out of the head of ghost moth larvae living in the soil at altitudes above 10,000 feet, and has been used as an aphrodisiac for at least a thousand years, earning it the nickname Himalayan Viagra.

他們是來尋找所謂的“蟲草”的，尼泊爾語叫"yarsagumba"。這是一種寄生真菌，由蝠蛾幼蟲的頭部形成，這種幼蟲生活在海拔3000多米的高原土壤中。蟲草被用作壯陽藥至少有1000年了，它擁有“喜馬拉雅偉哥”的別名。

In the 1980s, the pickers used to trade the fungus for cigarettes and noodles. But as yarsagumba grew in popularity, it exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry spanning China, Singapore and the United States.

在20世紀80年代，採摘者用這種真菌換香菸和麪條。但隨着蟲草越來越多地受到人們的喜愛，它迅速發展成爲一個橫跨中國、新加坡和美國的數十億美元的產業。

During the picking season, which runs from late May to July, the number of harvesters in Bagdanda and two neighboring camps has often reached several thousands of people. But this season, with the fungus becoming scarce, the number is down to the hundreds.

在5月下旬至7月的採摘季節，前來巴格丹達和附近兩個營地的採集者人數往往可達到幾千人。但隨着這種真菌變得越來越稀少，今年採集季節的人數已下降到了幾百。

They still hike from a camp below, carrying metal picks to dig out the fungus, helping to produce an average regional harvest of 135 tons a year. Occasionally, they stop at Mr. Rokaya’s tent to buy sheep’s curd. Most of the time they pass through, teetering on a steep hillside where they spend the morning hunched over to find the fungus’s crooked black stem poking through the dirt.

他們仍從山下的營地徒步上山，手拿金屬小鎬把蟲草挖出來，爲這個山區平均每年135噸的產量做貢獻。偶爾，他們會在羅卡亞的帳篷前停留，購買羊凝乳。但大多數時候，他們只是從這個搭建在陡峭山坡上的帳篷前路過，整個上午都在彎着腰尋找這種真菌露出泥土的彎曲黑莖。

Folklore has it that interest in the fungus stems from the startling performance of Chinese runners at an international track meet in 1993, which their coach attributed to their consumption of a soup combining the fungus with turtle blood. (Western competitors suspected something less exotic, namely performance-enhancing drugs.)

民間傳說稱，對這種真菌的興趣，來自中國賽跑選手在1993年的一次國際田徑運動會上令人吃驚的表現。他們的教練把成績歸結於運動員喝了用蟲草和鱉血做的湯。（西方的競爭對手懷疑並不是出於這麼具有異國風味的原因，而是由於使用了提高成績的興奮劑。）

With prices topping $50,000 a pound in China’s coastal megacities, harvesting of the fungus has helped to curb endemic poverty in the Himalayas, which stretch across Nepal, northern India, Bhutan, Tibet and China. For hundreds of thousands of people living in remote villages, selling yarsagumba has become a primary source of income.

在中國的沿海大城市，蟲草標價超過了每磅5萬美元（約合每千克66萬元人民幣）。採摘蟲草幫助改善了喜馬拉雅地區普遍存在的貧窮狀況。這一地區跨越尼泊爾、印度北部、不丹、藏區和中國。對於數十萬生活在邊遠村莊的人而言，售賣蟲草成了一項重要的收入來源。

A study by Nepal’s central bank found that harvesters earned an average of about $2,500, or 56 percent of their yearly income, selling the fungus. Money from yarsagumba has given some of the world’s most impoverished people access to electricity, hospital care and education.

尼泊爾中央銀行的一項研究發現，採摘者售賣蟲草的平均收入約爲2500美元（約合1.7萬元人民幣），佔他們年收入的56%。由蟲草獲得的收入讓世界上最貧窮的一些人用上了電，看得起病，也得以接受教育。

“The whole Tibetan plateau is by now completely dependent on the cash influx,” said Daniel Winkler, a mycologist who has studied the caterpillar fungus extensively in Tibet. He estimated that over one million people in Tibet sell the fungus.

“到現在，整個青藏高原地區完全依賴這部分資金來源，”真菌學家丹尼爾·溫克勒(Daniel Winkler)說。他在藏區就蟲草做過大量的研究。他估計藏區有超過100萬人在賣蟲草。

But as quickly as demand for the fungus has surged, its supply has dropped sharply. Mycologists studying the fungus point to overharvesting as one reason. But another possible cause, some researchers now believe, is a warmer ecosystem precipitated by climate change, a phenomenon that may be more acute at higher altitudes.

蟲草的需求迅速上漲的同時，供應量卻出現劇烈的下滑。研究蟲草的真菌學家認爲過度採摘是出現這種狀況的一個原因。不過一些研究者現在認爲，還有另一種可能的原因：由氣候變化引起的生態系統變暖。在海拔高的地方，這種現象或許更加嚴重。

“There are strong theoretical reasons as to why we might expect the rate of climate change to be faster higher up in the mountains than it is at sea level,” said Nicholas Pepin, a geographer at the University of Portsmouth in England.

“我們有充分的理論依據認爲，氣候變化的速率在山區會比在海平面更快，”英格蘭朴茨茅斯大學(University of Portsmouth)的地理學家尼古拉斯·佩平(Nicholas Pepin)說。

Some of the most compelling data comes from the Tibetan plateau, where from 2001 to 2012, the increase in temperatures was between half a degree Fahrenheit and nearly an entire degree at weather stations above 10,000 feet. In the same decade, global temperatures rose by only about 0.2 degrees.

一些最具說服力的數據來自青藏高原。自2001年至2012年，那裏的氣溫增長了0.5華氏度（約合0.3攝氏度），在海拔超過1萬英尺（約合3000米）的氣象站，增幅則達到將近1華氏度。而在同樣的十年裏，全球平均氣溫只增長了0.2華氏度左右。

Scientists say it is unclear why mountain ranges may be warming more rapidly than other parts of the planet. But Kamaljit Bawa, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said failure to better understand warming in the Himalayas could have serious consequences for the region’s unique biodiversity.

科學家表示，目前還不清楚爲什麼山脈地區氣溫增速會比地球上的其他地區更快。不過，馬薩諸塞州大學波士頓分校(University of Massachusetts at Boston)的生物學家卡邁勒吉特·巴瓦(Kamaljit Bawa)表示，倘若無法更好地理解喜馬拉雅的氣候變暖，可能會給該地區獨一無二的生物多樣性帶來嚴重的後果。

“We have to make very rapid progress,” he said. “We can’t use the slow approach, the traditional, slow scientific approach.”

“我們得非常快速地取得進展，”他說。“我們不能採用慢的方式，那種傳統的、比較慢的科學方法。”

Not for yarsagumba, apparently.

顯然，用這種方式應對蟲草問題是行不通的。

As harvesters returned from the pastures to Bagdanda on a recent afternoon, children gathered in the camp’s dusty thoroughfare and divided teams for a volleyball game. A mother held down her squirming daughter to pick lice from her scalp. Men congregated on trash-strewn dirt mounds and peeled strips of kutki, an herb used to treat vomiting and fever.

不久前的一個下午，採摘者從牧場返回巴格丹達，孩子們聚集在營地塵土飛揚的大路上，分組玩排球遊戲。一位母親按着她渾身扭動的女兒，給她抓頭髮裏的蝨子。男人們聚集在垃圾遍佈的土丘上，給胡黃連去皮。這是一種治療嘔吐和發熱的草藥。

In a village below the meadows, Prithvi Budha, 60, a beekeeper who is sitting out the harvest to watch dozens of empty mud and stone huts, said less precipitation may be the cause for the drop in yarsagumba supplies.

在位於草原下方的一座村子，現年60歲的養蜂人普里特維·布達(Prithvi Budha)沒有參加採摘，而是負責看守那幾十座沒人的泥石棚屋。他說降水減少可能是蟲草產量降低的原因。

“We used to have snow up to here and up to here,” he said, pointing to his torso and his shoulders as he recalled a string of childhood winters.

“過去這裏會下很大的雪，積雪能有這麼高，這麼高，”他說一邊說，一邊把手比到自己的軀幹和肩膀部位。他在回憶童年時期的冬天。

Uttam Shrestha, a researcher at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, said it was difficult to say why the supply of yarsagumba had dropped. Changes in temperature, he said, could be one of several factors affecting the supply of the fungus.

澳大利亞南昆士蘭大學(University of Southern Queensland)的研究人員烏塔姆·什雷斯塔(Uttam Shrestha)表示，很難確定爲什麼蟲草的產量會減少。他說氣溫變化可能是影響蟲草供應的多種因素之一。

“We can draw some inferences,” he said. “Here, the fungus is very sensitive to the increase in temperature and so that could have an impact, but there is no empirical evidence yet.”

“我們可以做一些推論，”他說。“在這裏，蟲草對氣溫的上升是非常敏感的，所以它可能會有影響，但目前還沒有實踐經驗的證據。”

Jir Bahadur Budha, 43, a farmer, said he was disappointed with this year’s harvest. He estimated that his family of six would collect only 400 pieces of yarsagumba, 200 fewer than last year and 500 fewer than the year before. The selling price for a single piece is about $3.50 in Nepal.

現年43歲的農民哥吉爾·巴哈杜爾·布達(Jir Bahadur Budha)表示，他對今年的收成感到失望。他估計今年家裏六個人只能採到400株蟲草，比去年少200株，比前年少500株。目前蟲草在尼泊爾的單株售價約爲3.5美元。

On a recent morning, Mr. Budha joined dozens of others in a pasture as a heavy fog set in. Within 10 minutes of searching, calls echoed from a few hundred feet away, where a teenager had spotted one of the day’s first pieces. Clawing away dirt from the larva’s body, the boy received a smattering of congratulations. He had found a good piece.

不久前的一個上午，布達和另外幾十個人在濃霧瀰漫之時走進了牧場。開始搜尋不到十分鐘，幾百英尺遠的地方傳來喊聲，一名少年找到了當天第一株蟲草。扒開幼蟲屍體上的泥土，他找到了一株品質不錯的蟲草，得到了零星的祝賀。

“Only lucky people find yarsagumba in the morning,” one man said.

“只有運氣很好的人才能在早上找到蟲草，”一名男子說道。

Mr. Rokaya, the shepherd, was cautious in his appraisal of the day’s pickings. Whatever the reason for the decline in yarsagumba, he said, it may be too late to salvage what has been lost.

對於當天的採摘，牧民羅卡亞的評價比較謹慎。他說不管是什麼原因導致蟲草產量下降，要挽回這裏損失的東西可能都已經太遲了。

“No jobs. No money. What to do?” he said, thrumming his fingers on a gnarled cane. “We eat the rice that even donkeys and horses don’t eat.”

“沒有工作。沒有錢。能怎麼辦？”他一邊說，一邊用手指連續敲擊一根彎曲的手杖。“我們吃的是連驢和馬都不吃的大米。”