Former President Barack Obama leads a five-part nature docuseries set to debut on Netflix next month.
The 44th president of the US and best-selling author is the narrator and star of Our Great National Parks, an intercontinental trip to conservation areas across the world, from Monterey Bay, California to Tsavo, Kenya. The educational series will see Obama himself travel into the wilderness to share knowledge about, and inspire a love for, the continued preservation of the world’s national parks and their inhabitants.
“When humanity started to protect these wild places, we did not realize how important they would become. They’re a haven for endangered species, and a hotbed for scientific research,” Obama says in the documentary trailer. Yellowstone National Park—the oldest national park in the world that celebrates its 150th anniversary this year—is a prime example of how parks play an active role in research and conservation. Read more about that here.
“This sloth has an entire micro-kingdom living in his fur,” Obama continues. “Researching him will help fight cancer, malaria, and antibiotic-resistant superbugs. This sleepy sloth might just save us all.”
Obama’s lasting legacy of environmental protections
Over the course of his two terms, Obama was a champion for both land and water, protecting more than 550 million acres while he held office between 2009 and 2017. (That’s more than double the amount that 26th president of the US and famed conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt, did.) Towards the end of his presidency in 2016, Obama created two new national monuments in Utah and Nevada—Bears Ears and Gold Butte—and protected 1.5 million acres of land.
Our Great National Parks was produced by A Wild Space in association with Freeborne Media and Higher Ground Productions, an Academy Award-winning company launched by Obama and his wife and former FLOTUS, Michelle, in 2018. The former Oval Office occupant himself, Blue Planet II filmmaker James Honeyborne, and Tonia Davis executive produced.
Coinciding with the series launch, the environmental nonprofits the Wildlife Conservation Society and Count Us will kick off a nature protection campaign.
All five 60-minute episodes of Our Great National Parks are set to premiere on Netflix on Wednesday, April 13.
