• The importance of native plants in city spaces and how they support Canada's biodiversity
• Everything you need to know about COP15
• A Q&A with Hetxw'ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson) and how he weaves together Gitxsan ways of knowing into his series of children's books
• An Eagle-Eye adventure to Belize and Tikal with Myrna Pearman
• We want to hear from YOU. What were your favourite stories of the year?

Gardens awaken the soul. There’s something beyond measurement that happens when hands plunge into cold, damp earth, ready to conjure whatever’s in the mind’s eye. I sink blue vervain seedlings into my little plot for their showy spikes of violet-blue blooms, a few swamp milkweed seedlings to feed the butterflies and provide shelter for their eggs, iris along the border because their smell reminds me of grape bubblegum, and at my front door, I hang a basket of red cultivated geraniums — my Nonno’s favourite. Gardens can read like a roadmap of our experiences; a poetry of plants. And each time we interact with a garden, it’s an acknowledgement of our duality with nature: we have the power to shape her, and we are her. In the end, I’m just another creature digging in the dirt.

Tending a garden can be a radical act, too. It can be a source of nourishment in a food desert, a medicine cabinet, a connection to cultures and ways of life that were nearly extinguished, a way of building community in an individualistic society. And for a growing number of us, gardening is a grassroots effort to restore damaged ecosystems and reconcile our relationship with the land.

Representatives from 196 countries will meet in December to create a plan to save the planet’s dwindling biodiversity

For two weeks in December, the world will converge in Montreal to decide the fate of life on Earth.

That epic responsibility awaits delegates from 196 countries — the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) — when they gather for the Dec. 7 kickoff of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to negotiate and finalize a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

The final document will contain 21 targets for habitat conservation, resource management, and policy, investment and equity initiatives, all with a singular aim: halting the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. Once the deal is struck, countries have just eight years to meet the targets in order to halt ongoing biodiversity loss and put the world on track to meet the UN’s overarching vision of humanity “living in harmony with nature” by 2050.

Black wings wheel in a scarlet sky. A raven guides a pack of wolves through a snow-carpeted forest. A mother guides her young through an interconnected world. These are but a few scenes from The Raven Mother, the latest in Mothers of Xsan, Hetxw’ms Gyetxw’s award-winning series of childrens books, which transports readers to northwestern British Columbia and introduces them to Gitxsan ways of knowing.

Canadian Geographic sat down with the Gitxsan writer and academic for a fascinating conversation about ravens, educating young people about ecosystem interconnectivity and the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledges (plural!).

and agami herons, sungrebe and jabiru and take boat rides for potoos and pauraques as well as Morelet’s crocodile and hickatee — a large river turtle.

Tikal National Park boasts over 200 species, including woodcreepers, tanagers, cotingas, manakins, toucans, trogons, and much more. Imagine sitting atop a magnificent Mayan pyramid with king vultures and white hawks circling close by, orange-breasted falcons in sight, and tropical forest canopy stretching as far the eye can see! This tour is what dreams are made of.

Meet your ambassador

Check out these other upcoming trips:

- Natural Wonders of Western Newfoundland with Charlene Bearhead
- Classic Dolomites with Marlis Butcher 
- Wildlife of the Zambezi Valley with Travis Steffens