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.

“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.

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.

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 went door to door in........

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