From an outdoor workout park to a designated cycling trail, the riverfront gives Warsaw residents plenty of opportunities to stay active. It’s the result of decades of redevelopment designed to bring Poles closer to nature.

Roza Tomczyk, 6, treasures the shells that she digs from the riverbank. Here, the water is fresh, but follow the Vistula north to its estuary and you’ll be in the brackish Baltic Sea, east of Gdansk.

Human nature: More from The Globe and MailThe Decibel podcast

If Warsaw had to put the value of the Vistula River into numbers, which ones would it choose? In 2021, when “ecoassets” were a nascent concept in urban planning, reporter Kathryn Blaze Baum spoke with The Decibel about what it really means. Subscribe for more episodes.

Nature in our backyards

In a bustling world, forest bathers trade to-do lists for the stillness of nature

Wild turkeys, once hunted out of existence in Ontario, are retaking Toronto

In Vancouver’s Stanley Park, clearing dead trees ignites a fiery debate