The Story of ECOLIFE

Our mission

ECOLIFE's core mission is to provide ecologically sustainable water, food, and shelter to communities through education applied programs. ECOLIFE solves natural resource issues using science, education, and strategic partnerships. Through applied programs, ECOLIFE provides immediate access to clean water, food, and shelter.  Through conservation education, ECOLIFE teaches about understandable connections to the natural systems supplying these essential needs. Ultimately, our activities provide communities with measurable health benefits, greater economic stability, and higher standards of living.

Executive Director William (Bill) Toone, ECOLIFE’s founding trustee and renowned conservation biologist, has been a successful spokesperson for endangered birds, insects, plants, and mammals for over 30 years. He has felt a connection with each species he has worked with and studied. Bill began to realize that many environmental scientists were compromising human needs or putting them second rather than treating them as equal to the needs of the animal species. He felt that conservation programs based on this approach would ultimately fail as important human needs were addressed.  Bill experienced this firsthand on April 4, 2000, when Cyclone Hudah struck Madagascar, a country in which he had worked for many years studying its flora and fauna. Cyclone Hudah, combined with poor soil management, resulted in the deaths of many people—some of them Bill’s friends. The conservation teams supporting Bill’s work backed away in the face of human crisis.  This reaction to the crisis galvanized him and his colleagues to take action. In 2003, ECOLIFE was established to help fill this important gap by using conservation as a tool—not only to protect our remarkable natural world but also to protect and improve human life.

ECOLIFE is an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization.