For Science, Society, and Policy in the Himalaya
Advancing the science, safe use and conservation of fungi in NEPAL HIMALAYA
Our work
Seven research themes, and they overlap constantly
Theme 1
Fungal Diversity and Taxonomy
Finding, naming and recording the fungi of Nepal and the Himalaya — from field observation to DNA.
Theme 2
Fungi and Environmental Change
What climate change, pollution and habitat loss do to fungi — and the evidence to act on it.
Theme 3
Mushroom Safety and Poisoning Prevention
Fewer poisonings: research, training and public awareness on which mushrooms are safe to eat.
Theme 4
Fungal Enterprise and Mycotourism
Cultivation, value addition and mycotourism — fungi as a livelihood that does not cost the forest.
Theme 5
Digital Mycology and Citizen Science
Open fungal records, citizen science, and the maps and models that make the data useful.
Theme 6
Fungi, People and Culture
How people use, trade and know wild mushrooms, caterpillar fungus and lichens — and what that knowledge is worth.
Theme 7
Fungal Conservation and Policy
Science and local knowledge informing conservation, the Red List, and policy under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Education
Funga Learning Hub
The education and capacity-building programme of Funga Network: practical skills in mycology, lichenology and fungal conservation for students, researchers, educators, communities and practitioners across Nepal and the Himalaya.
Identification, taxonomy, herbarium curation, microscopy, DNA barcoding, field documentation — and the research skills to turn them into published work.
Gallery
In pictures
Fungi and lichens of the Himalaya, the people who know them, and the field seasons where the work is done.
In the field
Mapping Nepal’s Underground Fungi
Our research scientists’ previous work across Nepal’s mountainous landscapes, supported and guided by the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), provides a strong foundation for expanding underground fungal research in the Nepal Himalaya. Building on our initial work in Everest and Manang, alongside Ajay Neupane’s research in Khaptad, Funga Network aims to explore Nepal’s diverse, pristine and underexplored ecosystems, particularly habitats where mycorrhizal fungal diversity remains undocumented.
Through systematic soil sampling, DNA metabarcoding and collaboration with local communities, we aim to generate essential biodiversity data to map Nepal’s hidden underground fungal networks. We also aspire to train a new generation of Nepali researchers in fungal ecology and molecular techniques. By expanding research into data-poor Himalayan landscapes, Funga Network seeks to complement SPUN’s ambitious mission to develop a global Underground Fungal Network Atlas, ensuring that Nepal’s extraordinary yet poorly documented fungal diversity contributes to this global effort.
In the field
Cultivation and livelihoods
Cultivated mushrooms are a growing income for farming households, and one of the few that does not need land the family does not have.
What grows well, at what altitude, and at what cost is knowledge held locally and rarely written down. Recording it is unglamorous work, and it is worth more to a farmer than any paper we could publish abroad.
Take part
How you can help
A network is only what the people in it make it. Three ways in, all of them read by a board member.
Support the work
Field seasons, laboratory work, specimen collections and the publishing of records all cost money that a young non-profit does not yet have. Support goes to documented work with a named person behind it — write to us and we will tell you exactly what a contribution would do.
Talk to us about supportingVolunteer in the field
Surveys, citizen-science recording, photographing and identifying finds, training days with communities. If you walk the hills — as a student, a ranger, a guide or on your own time — there is work waiting that nobody else is doing.
Offer your timeGive or seek a fellowship
Through the Funga Learning Hub the Network nurtures the next researchers with fellowships, scholarships and mentoring. Students and early-career mycologists can ask; donors can fund one and follow the work it produces.
Ask about fellowshipsStay in touch
News from the Network, by e-mail
New records, lessons, field seasons and calls — a few times a year, never more.
Something to say now? Write to us.
About
Who we are, on the record
A young organisation is judged on what it is willing to state plainly. This is everything there is so far.
A registered non-profit.Reg. No. 403353/83/84. Registration and tax documents will be published on this page.
Five co-founders.Appointed by the Annual General Meeting for three-year terms.
Dr. Shiva DevkotaFounder and Director. Mycologist, working on Himalayan fungi, Cordyceps, and the communities that harvest them.
Research funding goes to research.Grants are held and spent by the Network itself.
Pokhara-5, Kaski, Gandaki Province, Nepal