With a growing concern for the planet, more and more people are exploring the great outdoors and taking advantage of all that mother nature has to offer. Unfortunately, many people today view nature as an entity too powerful to overcome. Wilderness survival is often seen as a desperate struggle where people are pitted against insurmountable odds.

A hunter becomes hopelessly lost and wastes all his energy in a fight of panic. A hiker sprains an ankle and dies of hypothermia during a night without shelter. A downed pilot nearly starves to death in the midst of a bounty of edible plants and animals. A desert traveler is hospitalized for dehydration. Many of these mishaps could be avoided, however, with a basic understanding of wilderness survival.

Tom Brown Jr., director of the world-famous Tracking, Nature and Wilderness Survival School shares his own personal storehouse of experience and survival tips in TOM BROWN'S FIELD GUIDES (Berkley), a comprehensive series on outdoor survival.

Brown who learned to track and hunt from Stalking Wolf, a displaced Apache Indian, teaches would-be outdoorsman to build shelters that are protected from the weather. He recommends opening the shelter toward the east so the entryway will catch the first warming rays of the sun. Water is another important element in wilderness survival. Brown recommends collecting dew when water is scarce. He says it is probably the simplest and safest way to get drinkable water in a survival situation.

Emphasizing the importance of environmentalism, Brown says much of the destruction and disregard for the Earth is caused by people's alienation from the forests and fields. "Ultimately I will feel satisfied only when I see a redirection of attitude toward nature -- a reversal of our present tendency to exploit the land and our fellow creatures and the beginnings of a life ethic based on wisdom, respect reverence for all things," he says. Brown says, "This will assure the survival of us all."