Vision Statement

Our vision is to be an inspiration for all of those who feel a sense of kinship for Long Island by instilling in the local community a renewed wonder and appreciation for the natural world, and thereby a commitment to be, forever, stewards and protectors of the environment we call home.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to better enable the local community to understand, appreciate and conserve Long Island’s fragile natural diversity by making environmental education and public outreach the main focus of our work.

This mission will be achieved by:

1. Providing educational programs for the general public through nature-oriented talks, slide programs, guided walks and local outreach to area schools.

2. Establishing and maintaining a regionally significant nature center.

3. Supporting and bolstering conservation initiatives locally and statewide by promoting the Audubon Activist Program and other letter writing campaigns.

4. Providing hands-on experiences with nature for all age groups, and particularly children, by supporting and maintaining Audubon field ecology programs.

5. Promoting environmental education programs in the local schools, which focus on the ecology of Long Island, thereby insuring that future generations will do their utmost to protect and defend the East End’s threatened natural world.

6. Encouraging and supporting the expression of nature and preservation views in the arts, including sketching, painting, writing, poetry, woodcarving, crafts, film, and photography.

7. Serving as a networking group and educational and informational forum for local birders, naturalist, environmentalists, land stewards, educators, and preservationists.

8. Conveying to the local community the urgency of bird and wild lands habitat preservation by supporting and closely allying ELIAS with other non-profit organizations dedicated to the restoration and protection of the ecology and biodiversity of Long Island, as well as the greater Earth.

9. Articulating to everyone we encounter that we all have both a responsibility and an obligation to future generations and to all life on the planet to become stewards and protectors of our environment.

10. Providing technical and scientific assistance to public and private groups involved in current open space protection and wild lands conservation planning.

11. Encouraging and implementing at the earliest possible time a strategic plan of action for the future which will reaffirm ELIAS’s commitment to preservation by bringing about immediate and direct changes in the continued loss of significant bird habitats.

12. Sponsoring volunteer events, which heighten the community’s awareness of the need to preserve all bird species and their habitats.

13. Creating for ELIAS a legacy of saving Long Island’s rich natural world by making space for birds, wildlife, plants, and other wild things, which enrich our lives, and by illuminating the community’s awareness for the wondrous diversity of life not only on the East End but across the entire world.