Books about Conservancy from Amazon.com

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association collaborate on the #1 guide for those who seek to hike the A.T. from end to end. It is especially designed for potential thru-hikers who want the basic information (on towns and shelters and water) for a five- to six-month trek in the woods, at a reasonable price, but also want the adventure of finding out the extras for themselves. Edited by Leslie "Gotta Hike" Mass, who hiked the whole trail after age 60. With research by more than a dozen thru-hiker volunteers in 14 states, backed by the first-hand information of the trail's volunteer and staff maintainers and managers, and extensive information from the 2008 A.T. Data Book. Sized at 4" x 9" for easy packing, with town maps, illustrations, equipment-makers' toll-free numbers, post office hours..
Price: $8.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Formerly known as The Appalachian Trail Workbook for Planning Thru-hikes, this is still the basic rip-out-the-pages-and-really-plan-your-adventure book--but thoroughly updated in 2005 to cover new trends in the fine fun of walking almost 2,175 miles from Georgia to Maine or vice versa. This book will help you chart your course, work out a budget, choose gear, plan meals, get in shape, and otherwise inspire you..
Price: $4.72 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Long-distance hikers on the Appalachian Trail need 4,000 or more calories a day to keep on walkin'--and have to carry most of it on their backs! Before the husband and son of Lou Adsmond of Grand Rapids, Michigan, set out to hike the whole trail, then 2,169 miles, she was determined that they would eat well. From that experience, she has laid out how to plan "food drops" by mail and prepared recipes for home preparation of variable meals (not EveryNightNoodles), adding tear-out tabs with cooking instructions to be dropped into the ingredients' baggies. Illustrated..
Price: $11.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With 60 rural, suburban, and urban trails threading through 622 miles, Rail-Trails New England covers Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut Many rail-trails are paved and run through the most scenic parts of town, such as the 12-mile Island Line Trail in Burlington, Vt., skirting the city's waterfront before jutting three miles out onto a lake. Some delve into the particular history of an area, like the Massachusetts' Phoenix Rail-Trail, where the first naval battle of the American Revolution was fought offshore in 1775. Others offer an escape from city life, such as the East Bay Bicycle Path, Rhode Island's first rail-trail, which runs 14 miles from Providence to Bristol and provides stunning views of Narragansett Bay. This two-color book includes succinct descriptions of each trail from start to finish, plus at-a-glance summary information indicating permitted uses, surface type, length, and directions to trailheads for each trail..
Price: $10.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Extending from the spillway below Cochiti Dam, about fifty miles north of Albuquerque, to the headwaters of Elephant Butte Reservoir, near Truth or Consequences in the southern portion of New Mexico, the Middle Rio Grande Bosque is more than a cottonwood woodland or forest. It is a complete riverside ecosystem, among the more important in the world's arid regions.

Every day hundreds of visitors to the bosque encounter flora and fauna they can't identify. Researchers and municipal, county, state, and federal resource agency personnel concerned with the bosque's management need to know how plants and animals are linked to their habitats.

With descriptions of more than seven hundred plants and animals illustrated with color photographs, this authoritative guide is the first of its kind for the Middle Rio Grande Bosque and is an invaluable resource for land managers, teachers, students, eco-buffs, and nature enthusiasts. It also reveals the important role the bosque plays in New Mexico's natural heritage..
Price: $14.18 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A hiking legend, Earl Shaffer in 1948 came home from the South Pacific and set out to prove the then-little-known Appalachian Trail--its maintenance largely and necessarily neglected during the war--could be walked in a single continuous journey from Georgia to Maine. This is his own lyrical account of that walk, undertaken also to try to shake off World War II combat, during which he lost his best friend. Illustrated with his photographs during the hike, this book has inspired thousands to attempt similar "thru-hikes." In 1965, he walked it the other way, and, in 1998 at age 79, he did it again...on a trail far different from the one he basically rediscovered at mid-century, one that was more difficult than he liked as he neared his eighth decade. Originally self-published (300 copies), Walking with Spring was first professionally typeset and published in 1983; this is the second printing of a 1996 edition. Only the covers have changed since 1983..
Price: $4.62 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Since its inception as "forever wild" in the 1880s, New York's Adirondack Park has served as a model of conservation for the world. The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting the diversity of life on Earth and preeminent Adirondack photographer Nathan Farb here team up to reveal feats of nature that the human eye on its own would not perceive. In the tradition of Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, Farb renders the most miniscule detail as clearly as the grandest vista.
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Price: $24.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The conventional approach to river protection has focused on water quality and maintaining some "minimum" flow that was thought necessary to ensure the viability of a river. In recent years, however, scientific research has underscored the idea that the ecological health of a river system depends not on a minimum amount of water at any one time but on the naturally variable quantity and timing of flows throughout the year.

In Rivers for Life, leading water experts Sandra Postel and Brian Richter explain why restoring and preserving more natural river flows are key to sustaining freshwater biodiversity and healthy river systems, and describe innovative policies, scientific approaches, and management reforms for achieving those goals. The authors:

explain the value of healthy rivers to human and ecosystem health

describe the ecological processes that support river ecosystems and how they have been disrupted by dams, diversions, and other alterations

consider the scientific basis for determining how much water a river needs

examine new management paradigms focused on restoring flow patterns and sustaining ecological health

assess the policy options available for managing rivers and other freshwater systems

explore building blocks for better river governance

They offer case studies of river management from the United States (the San Pedro, Green, and Missouri), Australia (the Brisbane), and South Africa (the Sabie), along with numerous examples of new and innovative policy approaches that are being implemented in those and other countries.

Rivers for Life presents a global perspective on the challenges of managing water for people and nature, with a concise yet comprehensive overview of the relevant science, policy, and management issues. It presents exciting and inspirational information for anyone concerned with water policy, planning and management, river conservation, freshwater biodiversity, or related topics.".
Price: $22.47 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The American Bird Conservancy Guide to the 500 Most Important Bird Areas in the United States offers both bird enthusiasts and conservationists specialized information never before compiled in a single comprehensive volume.

This expert resource organizes the United States into 36 ornithologically distinct bird regions, then identifies and describes the 500 sites within these regions. Each site entry includes ornithological highlights, ownership information, a description of habitats and land use, a guide to which species one can expect to find, conservation issues, and visitor information. Full-color maps and illustrations throughout, along with a thorough index, make this book as useful as it is unique, an essential addition to the bird lover’s library..
Price: $7.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A Surer, Faster, Easier Way to Identify Birds

At last, a guide that successfully organizes birds by field-recognizable features for quick identification For lack of a better method, bird guides have traditionally placed birds in evolutionary sequence, resulting in birding's classic Catch-22 -- you must recognize an unknown bird and know its place in the sequence before you can took it up!

All the Birds arranges species by their feeding adaptations -- features that are easily observed. How a bird feeds largely determines its form. It's nature's way of organizing species to fit ecological niches. The powerful bills and tree-climbing habits of woodpeckers, for instance, are prominent feeding adaptations. Recognizing birds' adaptations for feeding is the natural, no-nonsense way to identify; learn, and understand them.

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Price: $11.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]