The Agriculture Minister said due to “high chances” of Bhutanese Cordyceps collectors coming in contact with foreigners across the northern borders, the ministry will deploy more foresters in the northern borders, this year. This is to minimize the risks of possibly contracting COVID-19 from foreigners.
Lyonpo also said that the foresters don’t need any additional training as opposed to what the Foreign Minister said during the last COVID-19 press briefing of having trained over 300 foresters to secure the northern borders.
“Though the forestry department has in total more than 2000 foresters, around 1300 of them are deployed in various bordering areas to support the army as soon as the country stepped up measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. We have now made arrangements to send additional foresters up north on Cordyceps harvesting duty and they don’t need any special training, as they are considered as paramilitary forces. Foresters already have training that is closely related to those undertaken by military personnel. What we need to do now is to increase the manpower for border security and not give training,” said Yeshey Penjor, the Minister of Agriculture and Forests.
However, the Prime Minister says there is “not much to worry” about importing COVID-19 in the country through Cordyceps collectors as there will be enough distance between Bhutanese and foreign collectors while collecting the fungi. Lyonchhen also said that there are already people deployed in the north to secure the border and monitor illegal collectors.
“When we look at the COVID-19 situation and the trend of foreigners trespassing on Bhutan’s Cordyceps collection sites, there isn’t much risk associated with it. To contract COVID-19 there must be person-to-person contact. There will be a huge gap, sometimes in kilometres between foreigners entering our collection sites to illegally harvest Cordyceps and our collectors. As soon as they see our collectors and collection site monitoring personnel, they will escape. There is no chance of contracting COVID-19 but a slight risk of losing our Cordyceps,” said Dr Lotay Tshering, the Prime Minister.
Kipchu
