The book profiles 10 Indigenous communities in central and north coastal British Columbia that are thriving through reconnection to their lands and waters; X̱aayda voices, for example, explain how their Rediscovery camps are healing and empowering their youth. The profiles, from an award-winning author who lives on Gabriola Island, B.C., show how wellbeing, integrity, stewardship and conservation are all tightly entwined.

Ostensibly about a New England fisherman’s obsessive pursuit of a 290-kilogram Atlantic bluefin tuna, Nova Scotia science and environmental journalist Pinchin weaves a tale with elements of true crime, biography, food culture and ecology. In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky and Susan Orlean, the tale encompasses both the origins of tuna science and research as well as the evolution of the Atlantic fishing industry.

The new book by award-winning Maryland naturalist and habitat consultant (who also wrote The Humane Gardener) is an invitation and guide to adjusting one’s way of seeing, gently cultivating the landscape and being alert to how it’s shared with other creatures. Lawson says even a person’s backyard is, “not really yours at all, but the gathering place of countless sovereign nations, a refuge for the increasingly displaced.”

When Dungy and her family moved to Colorado a decade ago, she made the decision to rip out her water-guzzling manicured lawn. The poet (and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist) and Guggenheim fellow’s challenge of strict social norms (and narrative) in their mostly white, suburban neighbourhood’s homeowners association, and the journey she took to diversify her garden (with native grasses and plants), is also about cultivating a diverse discourse about ecology; This book is where nature writing and environmental justice intersect.

There’s definitely an element of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild in this humorous chronicle of how a burned-out, Dublin-born, Surrey-raised book editor (and now, big-tree tracker) set about visiting all 43 trees on the BC Big Tree Champion List (a registry maintained by UBC’s forestry department). Naturally, adventures and misadventures abound as she uncovers interconnectedness in the forest.

Metropolitan wildlife has to survive and thrive in a hostile environment and some develop adaptations that distinguish them from their rural counterparts (squirrels, for example, using their tails to visually communicate with one another above the din of city noise). The Norwegian biologist investigates the species that live in urban nature — the birds, insects, plants and fungi of urban ecosystems that we often overlook.

Devotees of Gardeners’ World, Monty Don or Danny Clarke (a.k.a. The Black Gardener) will want to pick up the final instalment of this cult following trilogy (after How to Catch a Mole and Seed to Dust) that probes the restorative power of gardening. Hamer, who lives in Wales, chronicles how he is now too old to work as a professional landscaper and what happens as he begins to solely focus on tending his own patch.

This little anthology celebrates literature about landscape. Essays, songs, poems and excerpts by more than 50 contributors (from Plato and Ada Lovelace to Ursula K. Le Guin and Zadie Smith) are translated on parallel layouts into the unique tree ‘typeface’ of New York-based artist and environmental activist Holten. The canny selections make it a quirky and inspiring compilation that’s also an ecological manifesto.

A Toronto-raised, San Diego-based ocean journalist looks at the global race between military forces, investors, private explorers and scientists to completely map the ocean floor and in so doing, examines what compels so many around the world to explore (and potentially exploit) the deep sea.

Winnipeg magazine journalist Neufeld, who grew up as the child of Christian missionaries in West Africa, brings together skeptics and believers as he considers how to keep faith in an ecological apocalypse. The 10-chapter memoir looks at how religious and spiritual communities are grappling with ecological peril in the face of climate change. The book invokes both Mary Oliver and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with the restaurant in that book’s sequal — which was built on a ruined planet – inspiring Neufeld’s title.

With new advances in sensory biology, the director of the Animal Behaviour Lab at the University of Sydney lays out how human, plant and animal senses function and evolve, with new insights into how they interact with and regulate one another and how that shapes our experience of the world. It’s an accessible, pop-science of the five major senses and others (like balance) with simple examples of familiar sensations.

The Spanish professor and philosopher of plant behaviour lays out the new science of plant intelligence and in doing so suggests that flora are capable of cognition. Even if you aren’t convinced, the fascinating descriptions of the many ways plants interact with their environment will make you see the world differently.

The memoir by Parisian former head of sourcing for luxury perfume developer Firmenich (one of the world’s largest suppliers) is an anthropological deep dive into how plants such as roses, vetiver tonka beans and jasmine are cultivated and derived for use in fragrance. Each chapter is an ingredient travelogue that vividly evokes its raw material, from Peru balsam in El Salvador to the frankincense of Somaliland and redolent Ceylon cinnamon of Sri Lanka.

For its 30th anniversary, the evocative fly-fishing classic has been reissued in a slipcased edition. Lyons, a retired English professor from New York, tells the story of a month spent trout fishing at a spring-fed stream in the Rocky Mountains of Montana in diaristic style. A masterpiece that’s a paean to nature and wisdom.