“Just being surrounded by bountiful nature, rejuvenates and inspires us.” — EO wilson (Theory of biophilia)

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” — Albert Einstein

The Adirondack Council carries out programs that include a commitment to responsible education and constructive advocacy, partnerships and respect for all, innovation and excellence and commitment to the future.

Adirondack Mountain Club we are big fans (and members) of. It’s an organization of nature lovers committed to protecting, playing in, discovering and exploring the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

Historic Saranac Lake’s mission is to preserve and present area history and architecture to build a stronger community.

The Adirondack Museum on Blue Mt. Lake is a campus of buildings with loads of fun, educational, historical things to fully fascinate you and your family for a day.

The Marcella Sembrich Memorial Association honors international opera singer Marcella Sembrich at her former teaching studio and woodland retreat on Lake George. Their mission is to preserve and protect the museum collection, historical significance and legacy of Marcella Sembrich, present performances and exhibits that foster an appreciation for music, including opera, and the arts, and provide educational opportunities for the study of classical music.

BlueSeed Studio’s mission is to provide a space and promote a shared environment where artists, educators and community members have the opportunity to learn and participate, experiment and diverge, exhibit and perform, move ideas and aesthetics forward, and to share this diversity as an all-inclusive gateway to artistic experience.

Protect the Adirondacks! Inc. is a non-profit, grassroots membership organization dedicated to the protection and stewardship of the public and private lands of the Adirondack Park. They’re dedicated to building the health and diversity of its natural and human communities for the benefit of current and future generations.

Adirondack 46ers Club Climbing the 46 Adirondack peaks that are 4,000+ feet above sea level is about more than just receiving a patch for the accomplishment. It is a personal challenge that will reward you with memories and friendships that will last a lifetime. If you choose to take on the adventure, please climb safely, with concern for your fellow hikers and respect for the magnificent environment you have the privilege to explore.

The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. Founded at its grassroots in the United States in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. Thanks to more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of diverse staff and more than 400 scientists, they impact conservation in 72 countries and territories: 38 by direct conservation impact and 34 through partners.

The Sierra Club Foundation promotes climate solutions, conservation, and movement building through a powerful combination of strategic philanthropy and grassroots advocacy. The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor of Sierra Club’s charitable environmental programs.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system, and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.

“Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. —John Muir

 Inspired By The Majesty Of Mountains

“There are two kinds of people -- Beach People and Mountain People. Beaches are fun but mountains are divine. You get the exercise climbing them and the challenges and joys of hiking to summits, often with the reward of a beautiful well-earned view. You get the comfort of being surrounded by trees in the lower elevations and the inspiration from vast expansive views higher up. All of this while you’re often enveloped in crisp clean air. It’s breathtaking. We take only pictures and we leave only footprints in the mountains.”—Jonathan Sprout

Here are some excellent organizations working to preserve and protect our mountains.

The Sierra Club Foundation promotes climate solutions, conservation, and movement building through a powerful combination of strategic philanthropy and grassroots advocacy. The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor of the Sierra Club’s charitable environmental programs.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system, and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.

Conservation International protects the nature we all rely on for food, freshwater, and livelihoods.

The Nature Conservancy conserves the lands and waters on which all life depends. Every acre they protect, every river mile restored, and every species brought back from the brink, begins with individual support which helps make a lasting difference around the world in 79 countries and territories.

Forest Holidays has a wonderful guide for child learning activities in the outdoors. Children love playing in nature’s playground. They love gloriously muddy outdoor adventures. They love to explore further than the eye can see. They love to discover wildlife as they go. Nature is good for us. It’s good for us mentally and physically. Getting back to nature allows us the chance to relax and reconnect with the wider world around us. And while time spent outside is good for everyone, it’s most important in the development of children. Connecting with nature is key to creativity and curiosity.

The Earth Times aims to provide current environmental news coverage and green blogs to give the background information needed to better understand what can sometimes be enormously complicated and controversial environmental issues.

American Rivers protects wild rivers, restores damaged rivers, and conserves clean water for people and nature.

Appalachian Mountain Club was founded in 1876 to promote the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of America’s Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. These resources have intrinsic worth and also provide recreational opportunities, spiritual renewal, and ecological and economic health for the region. Because successful conservation depends on active engagement with the outdoors, they encourage people to experience, learn about, and appreciate the natural world.

The Adirondack Council carries out programs that include a commitment to responsible education and constructive advocacy, partnerships and respect for all, innovation and excellence, and commitment to the future.

Adirondack Mountain Club members help others play in, discover, and explore the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York while working to protect them. Jonathan is a member and big fan of this group of dedicated nature lovers.

Mountain Area Preservation’s mission is to preserve the Truckee-Tahoe, California/Nevada region’s mountain character and the natural environment for present and future generations.

Founded in 1931, the Rocky Mountain Conservancy (formerly the Rocky Mountain Nature Association) is a nonprofit organization supporting Rocky Mountain National Park. When you support the Conservancy, you’re supporting one of our national treasures for generations to come. Jonathan has lived in, played in and helped protect the Rocky Mountain National Park region since 1974.

Sonoma Mountain Preservation has been speaking for Sonoma Mountain since 1993, advocating for open space, recreation, and scenic preservation.

The mission of the Appalachian Mountain Club is to foster the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the outdoors. They envision a world where natural resources are healthy, loved, and always protected, and where the outdoors occupies a place of central importance in every person’s life.

American Hiking Society Hiking Resources: Get the information you need to feel confident on your next hike.

American Alpine Club, since its founding in 1902, has been a force in helping safeguard America’s wild landscapes and natural treasures. They focus on critical issues facing climbers and outdoor recreation nationally, such as keeping public lands pristine, wild, and open to human-powered recreation. Everyone at the AAC finds great joy and meaning in climbing, and they are committed to a thriving outdoor community sustained by healthy mountains and climbing landscapes for generations to come.

Great Smoky Mountains Association supports the perpetual preservation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, U.S., and the national park system by promoting greater public understanding and appreciation through education, interpretation, and research.

Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics provides research, education, and initiatives so every person who ventures outside can protect and enjoy our world, responsibly.

The Mountaineers are fierce advocates for wild places. Their conservation advocacy focuses on protecting public lands and responsible recreational access, including engaging future generations.

National Parks Conservation Association works to protect and enhance America's National Park System for present and future generations.

Alpine Club of Canada works toward the preservation of mountain regions and their flora and fauna. They support the conservation of alpine environments and regularly advocate to protect the places we love.

The Backpackers Club in the UK is for anybody who enjoys lightweight camping. The aim of the club is to promote and encourage backpacking.

The Wilderness Society works to unite people while protecting America’s wild places. 

Environmental Defense Fund is one of the world’s leading environmental organizations. They’ve been driving results for more than 50 years.

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” —John Muir

“May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.”—Harley King

 We All Need Access To The Healing Aspects Of Nature

Technological advances have made it possible to practically live inside virtual realities. Virtual reality can be engaging and positive, unless we lose sight of the natural world. Our happiness and survival are more dependent upon nature than most of us realize. Nature heals. It rejuvenates. It deepens and calms, allowing us to reconnect with ourselves so we can live grounded, authentic lives. The natural world offers us the antidote to stress and burnout, gives us perspective, thrills us with beauty and wonder, and makes life worth living.

Let’s not lose sight of the real reality. Because nothing will matter if we lose that. After all, we are nature. So let’s honor and protect it. Doing so is only natural.

Here are some excellent organizations working to preserve and protect nature.

The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. Founded in the US 1951, it has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. Thanks to more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of a diverse staff and more than 400 scientists, they impact conservation in 79 countries and territories across six continents.

The Heritage Conservancy is a community based organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of significant open spaces, natural resources, and our historic heritage. A champion of conservation best practices, Heritage Conservancy believes that everyone is responsible for stewardship and seeks to enlighten, engage, and empower others to help achieve this mutual vision. Jonathan knows these folks. They are great advocates for our environment.

Environment News Service (ENS) is the original international daily wire service of the environment. Established in 1990 by Editor in Chief Sunny Lewis and Managing Editor Jim Crabtree, the company is independently owned and operated under the direction of the founders. They provide late-breaking news of the environment from across the United States and around the world, providing fact-based news presented without bias. 

Carfree is a delightful solution to the vexing problem of urban automobiles

Clean Air Council Protects everyone’s right to breathe clean air.

Appalachian Mountain Club, founded in 1876, promotes the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of America’s Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. They encourage people to experience, learn about, and appreciate the natural world. Jonathan once hiked the Appalachian Trail for two months and 800 miles with the assistance of the AMC.

National Parks Conservation Association protects and enhances America's National Park System for present and future generations.

National Park Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1967 and rooted in a legacy that began more than a century ago, when private citizens from all walks of life took action to establish and protect our national parks. Today, the National Park Foundation carries on that tradition as the only national charitable nonprofit whose mission is to directly support the National Park Service.

The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks studies, educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation and protection of the National Park System and mission-related programs of the National Park Service. The Coalition is an active and respectful partner with the National Park Service and other like-minded organizations.

Here’s PBS Ken Burns’ The National Parks resources page listing National Park advocacy groups.

Protect Nature Now’s mission is to raise public awareness, generate political urgency around regulations, and build global opposition to the release of genetically modified microbes, protecting nature’s gene pool.

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”—Lord Byron

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”—John Lubbock

“The further we distance ourselves from the spell of the present, explored by our senses, the harder it will be to understand and protect nature's precarious balance, let alone the balance of our own human nature.”—Diane Ackerman

“Nature itself is the best physician.” —HIPPOCRATES

 Keep Wilderness Wild

As more people flock to metropolitan areas, many are slipping out of balance, disconnected, unaware of our basic human right to explore nature, to be wild.

A hundred years ago, farms took up 15% of our planet’s land. Now, much more of Earth’s land surface is used for agriculture. Wild places are shrinking and they will only survive if there is international cooperation to preserve these priceless ecosystems.

Wilderness is intrinsic to everything living on this planet. Once it’s gone, we can’t get it back.

Help us protect, cherish, and celebrate wilderness.

Here are some excellent organizations working to protect our wilderness.

Wilderness Foundation Global (WFG) is an international alliance of action-oriented, like-minded organizations which know that wilderness areas have local meaning and global significance, with direct importance to human health, well-being and inspiration. They work to protect wild nature while meeting the needs of human communities - for the good of all life on Earth.

Wilderness Watch is America’s leading organization dedicated to defending and keeping wild the nation’s 111 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. their work is guided by the visionary 1964 Wilderness Act.

Wild expands and empowers global coalitions that defend Earth’s life-saving wilderness.

Natural Resources Defense Council was founded in 1970 by a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement. Today's leadership team and board of trustees makes sure the organization continues to work to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.

The Old-Growth Forest Network was founded by our friend Joan Maloof to preserve, protect and promote the country's few remaining stands of old-growth forest. Old-growth forests are also known as virgin forests. Today, less than 5% of Western and only a fraction of 1% of Eastern original forests, on average, remain standing. It is our turn to do what we can to save the remnant old-growth (or future old-growth) forests across the country.

Friends of the Earth fights for a healthier and just world, speaking truth to power and exposing those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. They organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of the economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.

The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was co-founded by American hero John Muir in 1892 to preserve and protect the wilderness.

Earthday works to make every day an Earth Day. This is the moment to change it all — the business climate, the political climate, and how we take action on climate. Now is the time for the unstoppable courage to preserve and protect our health, our families, and our livelihoods. We must act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably). It’s going to take all of us. All in. Businesses, governments, and citizens — everyone accounted for, and everyone accountable. A partnership for the planet.

The American Chestnut Foundation is working to rescue the iconic American chestnut tree and return it to its native range in the eastern U.S. forests. If you’ve read Richard Powers’ The Overstory, you’re probably a big fan of this amazing tree. We are chestnut fans!

Here’s the blog page of the Tuolumne Group of the Sierra Club (Part of the Mother Lode Chapter in California). They’ve posted our multi-award winning Wilderness video. This is a great page that supports actions to combat climate change.

Environmental Defense Fund: one of the world’s leading environmental organizations taking on climate change and other grave threats by identifying what’s most urgent and where they can make the most difference.

National Parks Conservation Association: protecting and enhancing America’s National Park System for present and future generations.

The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. Founded at its grassroots in the United States in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. Thanks to more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of diverse staff and more than 400 scientists, they impact conservation in 72 countries and territories: 38 by direct conservation impact and 34 through partners.

Greenpeace believes optimism is a form of courage. They invite people out of their comfort zones to take courageous action, individually in their daily lives, and in community with others who share their commitment to a better world. A green and peaceful future is the quest. The heroes are those of us who believe a better world is not only within reach, but being built today.

Wildlife Conservation Society stands for Wildlife.

The Wilderness Society works to protect America's wilderness and to develop a nation-wide network of wildlands through public education, scientific analysis, and advocacy.

Wilderness first aid is the knowledge and ability to effectively address injuries, illnesses, or emergencies outside of modern facilities, out in the wild. Skills could include knowing how to dress a wound, treat a burn or bite, or set an injured limb. These are important skills that can save your life or the lives of other outdoor enthusiasts. Learn more and be better prepared for your next hiking or backpacking adventure.

World Wildlife Fund Canada’s work has evolved from protecting particular wildlife species and habitats to protecting life on Earth – including our own. Today, their work is about life, because everything we do is about securing the future of healthy, thriving ecosystems.

Here’s a link to the Greenpeace efforts to protect the oceans.

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has a mission to preserve the outstanding wilderness at the heart of the Colorado Plateau, and manage these lands in their natural state for the benefit of all Americans.

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.”—Edward Abbey

“If I had my way about national parks, I would create one without a road in it. I would have it impenetrable forever to automobiles, a place where man would not try to improve upon God.”—Harold L. Ickes

“In the wilderness is the salvation of the world.”—Henry David Thoreau