Dinerstein, chief scientist with WWF, chronicles his globe-trotting adventures in this series of seven enjoyably engaging essays. Our reluctant hero lucks into the Peace Corps in Nepal, has a grand time with some of the greats in tropical ecology in Costa Rica, heads out to Ladakh to study snow leopards, finds himself in New Caledonia, East Africa, Galapagos, the plains of Montana and then back in Nepal. Dinerstein is a wise and witty writer, combining stories of his own transformation into a conservation biologist with deft portraits of key researchers and some fine observations about place.  (CON30, $16.95)