The sound of branches cracking echoed through the air in Dadara, one of the last nesting grounds of the greater adjutant stork, locally known as the hargila. By the time she arrived, the damage had already been done. A towering nesting tree had been cut down, and with it, nine helpless hargila chicks had come crashing to the ground.
They lay there — injured, frightened, some dying—amid broken branches and dust. For someone who had already dedicated her PhD to studying and protecting the endangered bird, the sight was devastating.
She confronted the man responsible, trying to explain why the hargila mattered, why its survival was important, and how close the species was to disappearing. But instead of concern, she was met with laughter. Men gathered around, mocking her, clapping sarcastically. They dismissed the bird as dirty and unlucky.
She confronted the man responsible, trying to explain why the hargila mattered, why its survival was important, and how close the species was to disappearing.
“Who will clean the mess this bird makes? Will you do it?” they asked.
To them, the hargila was nothing more than a nuisance and a bad omen. To her, that moment in January 2007 became the turning point that would shape a lifetime of conservation.
A moment that sparked in paddy fields many years ago
On the banks of the Brahmaputra, in Pub Majir Gaon, Kamrup, a little girl once believed that birds were divine. Raised by her grandmother, it was her Aita (grandmother) who quietly shaped the course of her life.
Through stories.
Today Purnima Devi Burman, a wildlife biologist and Time’s Women Of The Year 2025, is known for saving the world’s rarest stork – the hargila. But it was her aita’s stories that led her here.
Purnima was in the middle of her PhD fieldwork when the phone call from Dadara, one of the last nesting sites, changed everything in 2007.
When Purnima refused to eat, her grandmother would take her to the paddy fields and point to the birds. As she rolled rice into soft balls, she would say, “Look, that stork will come and take your ladoo away.” Lost in wonder, she would eat.
Life was beautiful. Folk songs filled their afternoons, songs where kites and storks lived alongside gods. “My childhood was intrinsically connected to nature,” Purnima reminisces, “Floods arrived every year. Nature was not distant or decorative. It was survival.”
Conservation, conversation, community
Years later, Purnima would return to these landscapes as a researcher. After completing her MSc in Zoology with specialisation in Animal Ecology and Wildlife Biology, securing First Class, she went on to pursue a PhD at Gauhati University on the foraging ecology, breeding success, and genetic status of the endangered Greater Adjutant Stork (Leptoptilos dubius).
Purnima was in the middle of her PhD fieldwork when the phone call from Dadara, one of the last nesting sites, changed everything in 2007.
The Hargila was among the rarest storks in the world. Tall, awkward, scavenger-feeding, it had earned the label of a bad omen.
Trees hosting its nests were cut down without hesitation.
“A PhD alone would not save the Hargila,” she says. “Scientific data means very little if people believe a species is worthless or cursed.” She paused her research and chose a harder path. She knew conservation would have to happen with the community, not against it.
Purnima began by listening.
She organised cooking competitions, rangoli events, and folk prayers in spaces where women felt safe.
She went door to door in villages like Dadara, Pacharia, Kulhati, and later Nagaon, Sivasagar, and Tezpur of Assam, not with lectures, but with conversations. She learned quickly that posters and presentations would not undo beliefs passed down through generations.
What did work was culture.
She organised cooking competitions, rangoli events, and folk prayers in spaces where women felt safe. Slowly, hesitantly, women gathered. And in these gatherings, she began to tell a different story of the Hargila. Not as a bad omen, but as nature’s cleaner, a bird essential to ecological balance.
One idea transformed everything: the Hargila baby shower.
Drawing parallels between motherhood and the care Hargila mothers give their chicks, the concept struck an emotional chord. Women who once feared the bird began to protect it. Fear turned into curiosity. Curiosity turned into pride.
From this trust grew the Hargila Army, a movement that Purnima formally began building from 2007, though she notes that she had been working in wildlife conservation since 2001.
Feminism, nature & nurture
“Women do not separate conservation from everyday life,” Purnima says. “They blend it with culture, family, work, and identity.”
What began as a handful of women has grown into a force of over 20,000 women, with around 1,500 actively involved on the ground.
These women monitor nests, rescue fallen chicks, guard nesting trees, and educate the next generation.
Women were deliberately placed at the centre. Husbands who once doubted now drop their wives off at meetings and return to pick them up.
The Hargila’s transformation from “ugly bird” to cultural icon is proof of storytelling’s power.
Women who had never earned now contribute to household expenses and children’s education. Respect followed impact.
One of the biggest ideas was using textiles as a conservation tool.
“In Assam, nature lives in our looms,” Purnima explains. “Even the sound of the handloom reminds me of the Hargila.” Hargila motifs began appearing on handwoven textiles, embroidery, knitting, and handicrafts.
Conservation moved from classrooms into homes. At the same time, women artisans gained livelihoods, strengthening both dignity and income. This approach addressed two crises at once: biodiversity loss and rural economic vulnerability.
Labita Baishya, who joined the Hargila Army in 2017, is one such example. Once a housewife was content with her routine, it was her husband who encouraged her to step out.
“I couldn’t even speak to people earlier,” she says. “Today, I train 50 or more women at a time in weaving and tailoring, and earn Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 a month.” She still remembers meeting Purnima for the first time. “I was so inspired by her passion, I knew I had to be part of this.”
A similar shift shaped 55-year-old Saroda Das, who stepped out of her home in 2010 after hearing Purnima speak. Today, she conducts tailoring training in the new nesting colony at Kulhati, where women wait for her sessions and treat her like family.
“Sometimes even tourists join us when we go from village to village,” she says. “My husband proudly introduces me to everyone. I cannot explain the sense of freedom I feel.” Her journey comes full circle when she recalls the past. “I used to hate the hargila,” she admits. “They would come to our flooded paddy fields during monsoons and eat the fish. I even threw stones at them.” She pauses, “Today, I regret it.”
The Hargila army’s impact
Before community-led conservation began in 2007, only 18 Hargila nests were recorded. Today, in Dadara, Pacharia, and Singimari alone, there are over 485 nests, with almost zero nest destruction. In 2024, a new nesting colony was discovered in Kulhati, with 52 nests recorded in a single year.
The numbers tell a remarkable story:
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Stork population in Assam has grown from around 400 individuals before 2007 to 1,800–2,000, making it the largest population in the world.
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IUCN status improved from Critically Endangered to Near Threatened.
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Breeding success rates increased due to nest monitoring and chick rescue.
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Artificial nesting platforms, designed using scientific data, are now actively used by Hargilas.
But the deeper impact lies in livelihoods:
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Women earn through tailoring, weaving, embroidery, and handicrafts
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Skill development workshops have increased employability
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Women now participate in household decision-making
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The Hargila Army is recognised globally as a conservation leadership model
Today, Purnima lives in Guwahati, balancing research, advocacy, and fieldwork. Her work has been recognised globally, including TIME’s Women of the Year 2025, Whitley Gold Award 2024, Whitley Award (Green Oscar) presented by Princess Anne, UN Champions of the Earth, Nari Shakti Puraskar, UNDP India Biodiversity Award and more.
Yet, she remains rooted in the field. “Conservation is not a project with an endpoint,” she says. “It becomes a way of life.”
Along with her twin daughters, she went to another hargila habitat in Prek Toal, a premier bird sanctuary and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, as a guest of Wildlife Conservation Society, and she trained women biologists, women community members, entrepreneurs and forest park rangers on the community-led behaviour change model.
The Hargila was among the rarest storks in the world. Tall, awkward, scavenger-feeding, it had earned the label of a bad omen.
“My goal is to expand this work here in Cambodia as much as possible to exchange ideas among Assam hargila conservation communities and the communities from Cambodia, as the hargila is found only in Assam and Bihar in India and Prek Toal in Cambodia. I aim to expand this behaviour change model. While the population numbers are still alarmingly low, the fact that the numbers have begun to increase since the movement started gives us hope”, she says, adding, “but hope alone is not enough. Conservation is not a project with an endpoint. It has to become a way of life.”
The Hargila’s transformation from “ugly bird” to cultural icon is proof of storytelling’s power.
“When stories change, identities change,” Purnima explains. “And when identities change, protection becomes instinctive.”
Hargilas now appear in festivals, songs, textiles, and children’s drawings. They are no longer invisible. Over the next decade, Purnima hopes to increase the global Hargila population from around 3,200 birds today to 5,000–10,000 birds, while expanding the women-led model to other species and regions.
She believes conservation must begin far earlier than policy. “If I could redesign conservation in India,” she says, “I would start with environmental education rooted in care, from the first day of life.”
Eighteen-year-old Tridip Das is often called a “son of the Hargila Army.” His journey began when he was just 14.
One day, he spotted an injured kite lying on the road while others walked past. He stopped, picked it up, and took it home.
“People came later and wanted photos as if they had rescued it,” he recalls. “But I didn’t care about that.” Instead, he called Purnima, who guided him on how to care for the bird and connected him to the forest department to transport the bird to the Assam state zoo team. That moment became his entry point into conservation.
Pratima Kalika Rajbongshi, a young mother back in 2010, joined the Hargila army and attended one of Purnima’s meetings.
Stories of hargila chicks falling from trees and dying, simply because no one knew how to help them, shifted something in her.
“As a mother, I was shocked,” she says. “If my child fell, I would always be there to pick her up. But who would pick up the hargila babies?”
That question became her calling.
Today, Pratima is no longer just a listener. She is a leader who travels from village to village, conducting awareness sessions, guiding women on how to protect the bird, and standing as a visible face of change.
“My husband and two children were once my entire world. Today, I speak in rooms with 100 to 150 women. I also contribute financially to my home. I feel proud of myself.”
She pauses, then adds, with quiet conviction, “Every woman, no matter her age, should step outside her home and take charge of her life.”
A legacy of stork sisterhood
Once, Purnima was a little girl listening to her grandmother’s stories about birds in the paddy fields of Assam. Years later, she became the woman standing beneath falling nesting trees, fighting for the survival of the hargila.
What began as research turned into a lifelong relationship with a bird the world had dismissed. She stood by the hargila when few others would, protecting it not just as a species, but as family.
That is how Purnima Devi Burman became known as the “Stork Sister” — and through the Hargila Army, she made an entire community feel like sisters to the stork too.
