Purnima Devi Barman
An Assam wildlife biologist who turned village women into the "Hargila Army", protecting the greater adjutant stork and helping its numbers recover.
Purnima Devi Barman is a wildlife biologist from Assam who has spent most of her career saving the greater adjutant stork, known in Assamese as the hargila. Her work with village women was highlighted in episode 135 of Mann Ki Baat in June 2026 [1].
A bird nobody wanted
The greater adjutant is a huge scavenging stork, standing up to 1.2 metres tall with a wingspan of about 2.4 metres [2]. Because it feeds on carrion and refuse, villagers saw it as dirty and unlucky, and often cut down the trees where it nested [2][4]. By 2007, when Barman began her campaign, only about 450 were thought to remain in Assam, the bird’s largest breeding stronghold [2][4].
Barman, who earned a PhD studying the species and works with the Guwahati conservation group Aaranyak, met hostility at first from the owners of the nesting trees [2].
The Hargila Army
Most nesting trees stand on private land, and it was local women who took up her cause. They began guarding nests, caring for chicks that fell to the ground and holding “baby showers” to welcome new hatchlings [2][3]. The women also weave textiles carrying stork motifs, which spreads the message and earns them an income [3]. Over time the group, known as the Hargila Army or the “stork sisters”, grew to more than 10,000 members, and belonging to it became a matter of pride [2][4].
The results have been striking. In one colony in Kamrup district, nests rose from 27 in 2007 to 250 in 2021, and the group has rescued more than 500 fallen chicks and planted about 45,000 saplings [2]. Assam’s population is now put at over 1,800 birds, and in December 2023 the IUCN moved the species from Endangered to Near Threatened [2][4].
Recognition
Barman was named a UN Environment Programme Champion of the Earth for 2022 in the Entrepreneurial Vision category [3]. She won a Whitley Award in 2017 and the Whitley Gold Award in 2024, which she is using to double the Hargila Army to 20,000 women and extend the work to Bihar and Cambodia [2][4].
In Mann Ki Baat, the Prime Minister described how a bird once seen as a bad omen is now protected by thousands of women in Assam [1].
Sources
- [1] PM's address in the 135th Episode of Mann Ki Baat — Prime Minister's Office (pmindia.gov.in). Accessed 12 October 2026.
- [2] India's Purnima Devi Barman Wins 2024 Whitley Gold Award — Whitley Fund for Nature. Accessed 12 October 2026.
- [3] Assam's conservationist gets UN's highest environmental honour — EastMojo (Press Trust of India). Accessed 12 October 2026.
- [4] Hargila Army: how 10,000 women saved India's rarest stork — BBC Wildlife (Discover Wildlife). Accessed 12 October 2026.
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