Aparajita leads NCF’s Eastern Himalaya programme, under which research and community-based conservation with hornbills as a flagship have been carried out for 20 years. She completed her PhD on hornbill biology and their role in seed dispersal in 2000. For the last 18 years, she and her team has been engaged in hornbill research and conservation with communities in Arunachal Pradesh and since 2013, in other parts of north-east India. A long-term hornbill nest and roost monitoring project is on since 2003. A Hornbill Nest Adoption Program set up in 2011 protects hornbill nests in forests outside a Protected Area, in partnership with local people and the Forest Department.
