01x02 - Waterland

[bunniefuu]

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Welcome to North America.

The most diverse continent on Earth.

Home to a unique lineup
of incredible animals.

And some pretty amazing people too.

Across the country,

everyday heroes from all walks of life

are stepping up to the plate...

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIR]

COAST GUARDSMAN: There's the blow.

NARRATOR:
...to protect our most iconic animals...

Pretty amazing to see it run off
into the wild.

NARRATOR: ...and our wildest spaces.

BERNADETTE: This place is one of the last
untouched ecosystems in the world.

And we are going to fight
to keep it that way.

NARRATOR: Anyone can help.

ALEX: You have the power within you,
even if you're a little kid,

to go and make a change.

Inspiration is just contagious.

NARRATOR:
To share our world with wildlife,

it takes people with passion...

Holy moly!

NARRATOR: ...and vision for the future
of our beautiful continent.

[MUSIC FADES]

[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: The Northern Great Plains.

One hundred and eighty million acres

of open prairie,
crisscrossed with roads and farms.

But just a couple of centuries ago,
this was all wilderness,

filled with animals.

There are plans to restore it
to its former glory.

Ecologists Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant
and Dr. Danny Kinka

are carrying out an aerial survey

for an organization
called American Prairie.

Their vision is to rewild the grasslands
on an epic scale.

This place used to have just hundreds
and hundreds of species.

You know, if we flash back 200 years,

you could just see all of those animals
all over these grasslands.

And it's possible to get this place back
to where it was before.

The mission of American Prairie
is to restore

one of the last remnant grasslands
on the planet

and to open that up to the public
so that they can enjoy them,

so they can experience this kind of
Serengeti-type landscape

but right here in North America.

NARRATOR:
American Prairie is buying up land

to create a three-million-acre haven
for wildlife.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

[INSECTS CHIRPING]

NARRATOR: The plan is to restore
the entire ecosystem.

From humble vegetarians...

to A-list predators.

Wolves from Yellowstone

and grizzly bears are already
on their way here.

[COWS MOOING]

NARRATOR: But this is cattle country.

Cowboys have worked this land
for 150 years.

And predators are a threat
to their livelihood.

[COWS MOO]

NARRATOR: Rae and Danny are trialing
some new solutions

to help ranchers live alongside wildlife.

Lance and Nicole are the first
in their community to give it a try.

-LANCE: Hey.
-RAE: Good morning. Good to see you guys.

Hello.

-NICOLE: Good morning.
-LANCE: I'm a cow guy first and foremost.

I'm fourth-generation Montanan.

Both me and my wife's families
came here and homesteaded,

and we love the land, we love the cattle.

But I also think
there's ways to balance things

and to have the wildlife here,

and to have them in healthy numbers,
and to enjoy them for yourself,

or to even, you know, make some money.

NARRATOR: American Prairie pays ranchers
for any wild animals caught on camera

on their land.

For something like a coyote,
they might receive 25 dollars.

If they were to get a wolf
or a grizzly bear on that camera,

it would be worth 500 dollars.

It's a little contribution that may ease
the pain of losing livestock,

but it doesn't stop the cattle
from being preyed on.

To help with that, people are turning
to an old profession around these parts.

Range riders.

They're hired by ranchers
and wildlife groups

to keep predators away from livestock.

A range rider with the cattle is
that extra level of deterrent

that just says to a wolf,
or a grizzly bear, or a cougar,

or even a coyote, "Hey, better to stick
with the deer, don't mind the cows."

RAE: The range riders
I'm meeting these days, like Molly,

are similar yet different
from range riders of the past.

You know, their grandfathers
or great grandfathers,

if they came across a wolf,
or a bear, or a mountain lion,

they probably would have k*lled it.

Whereas, today, we have these young women

who are really strong and ambitious
and have a solid understanding

of the balance that nature needs here.

You don't see a lot of women,

or you don't notice them,
out here making a difference.

And we really are making a big difference.

And I really am proud
to be a part of that and inspire people.

Now they've laid the groundwork,
it's opened the door for the return

of the prairie's most iconic animal.

The bison.

[SNORTS, GROWLS]

NARRATOR: Symbol of the heartlands.

Once their numbers were up to 60 million
on the Great Plains.

By the 1880s,
they were hunted to less than 400.

Today, they're coming back.

A group of bison
raised by American Prairie

are set to be released
onto the plains of Montana.

-[DRUM BEATING]
-[TRIBESPEOPLE VOCALIZING]

NARRATOR: Over 500 members
of the Chippewa Cree Tribe are here

to welcome the bison back
to their native lands.

A symbolic moment for Dustin,
known as Sweet Grass Old Man.

At one time, you could look upon this land
and see buffalo from horizon to horizon.

That's how many were here.

And it means so much to bring it back.

[SENTIMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Rae and Danny are here
to witness history in the making.

[BISON GRUNTING]

Here we go, guys.

NARRATOR: Time to release the bison
into their new home.

MALE VOICE: Ready?

-RAE: Here they come. Here they come.
-[MALE VOICE 2 WHOOPING]

[BISON HOOVES THUNDERING]

Yeah.

[PEOPLE WHOOPING]

-RAE: Yay!
-[BOTH LAUGHING]

To watch that happen,
you can feel the ground shake

as they come thundering out of that pen.

It feels like
something's been put back right again.

The idea is that these bison are going
to reproduce and reproduce

and create a larger and larger population.

And maybe one day

they'll get back to those population sizes
that we used to have historically here.

NARRATOR: American Prairie's goal is
to create a herd of over 10,000.

TRIBESMAN:
The buffalo made a promise to Creator,

promise they'll never leave us,
the human race.

So, it means a lot today.

And then to see the eagle fly above,

it's like a complete ceremony,
made it all whole.

NARRATOR: From the Great Plains...

to the very edge of the continent,
people are taking action

to protect their local wildlife.

And you don't have to be a scientist
to make a difference.

Anyone can help at any age.

-MIKE: Beautiful sunrise, Alex.
-ALEX: Yeah.

NARRATOR:
At Stillwater Cove, in California,

young conservationist Alex Weber
and her dad, Mike, are hitting the waves.

ALEX: Growing up as a kid, I spent
all of my free time in the ocean.

It's always been my safe place
and my happy place.

And that love for the ocean grew
as I grew.

[ETHEREAL MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR:
The undersea forest around Monterey

is home to hundreds of species.

Alex's favorite...
the California sea otter.

They rely on the kelp for shelter,

and it's also where they find their food.

ALEX: Sea otters really do have
a magical charm to them.

They're incredibly curious.
They like to come and check you out,

and so we always get visited by one
when we're out diving

which is always a special experience.

NARRATOR: But all is not well here.

Alex has noticed
the otters chewing on garbage.

And in particular, golf ba*ls.

There's a sinister secret
beneath the waves,

uncovered by Alex when she was
just a 16-year-old high schooler.

ALEX: When we looked beneath the ocean,
you couldn't see the bottom.

It was this dynamic blanket of golf ba*ls
just tumbling along

as the ocean swayed back and forth.

NARRATOR: The reason for all the ba*ls?

Right next door is
the famous Pebble Beach Golf Club.

One mistake here
and your ball's in the ocean.

They're rolling around, and the coating
on the golf ball quickly gets worn off.

And all that plastic,
all the chemicals that were used,

they're now in the environment
in an uncontrollable way.

And every one of those golf ba*ls
is like three water bottles.

Now, if you saw someone come and dump
a bag of water bottles in the ocean,

you'd get pretty upset.

NARRATOR: Alex decided
to tackle the problem herself.

One golf ball at a time.

ALEX: I always say if golf ba*ls floated,
this wouldn't be an issue.

But because these golf ba*ls are
out of sight, they are out of mind.

NARRATOR: Over the last five years,

Alex and Mike have collected
50,000 golf ba*ls

but still believe
there are over a million left.

Alex recorded her data
in a scientific paper

to persuade the golf course
to clean up its act.

MIKE:
Once the research paper was published,

within a matter of days,

Pebble Beach went public with a commitment
to take the golf ba*ls out of the ocean.

ALEX: The power was not
in the removal of the golf ball,

but it was in the message to other people
that if you're seeing a problem,

you can go and make a change.

And you have the power within you,
even if you're a little kid,

to go out there
and make that change happen

for yourself, for your community,
and for your environment.

NARRATOR: But plastic pollution is only
part of the story.

The sea otters
and other kelp forest residents

are facing the loss
of their entire habitat.

Alex's dad, Mike, is working
with a team of divers

to try to stop an invading army.

Sea urchins...

in their millions.

Urchin numbers have exploded
because of unusually warm waters.

And they're eating their way
through the kelp.

Two-thirds of the forest is already gone.

MIKE: The scale
of this problem is beyond belief.

It's tens of thousands
of acres of... of coastline

that the kelp has been devastated.
And as a result,

the fish populations suffer,
the crustaceans suffer, everything suffers

because the forest
that they all depended on is now gone.

[WAVES CRASHING]

MIKE: So, if there's no kelp forests,
the sea otter is missing a habitat,

it's missing some protection.

And nobody wants
a world without sea otters.

Mike is with a group of volunteer divers,
led by Keith Rootsaert.

They call themselves "The Urchinators."

Our role in this is to go out
and be a predator of urchins

and reduce the number of urchins
so that the kelp can come back and thrive

and restore the biodiversity to this reef.

[DIVERS SPLASH]

NARRATOR: Over 400 divers have joined
the Giant Kelp Restoration Project.

So far, they've removed 350,000 urchins
to help the kelp recover.

[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]

KEITH: It feels great to be out there
doing something and not just watching

the disaster unfold in front of us.

All right.

FEMALE DIVER:
Oh, this is nice. Yeah, I think...

MALE DIVER: It's a good haul.

Every little bit makes a difference,
you know?

Yeah, yeah. Especially when they're
on the kelp and you're taking them off.

KEITH:
You know, there are so many urchins,

and then you realize that it's not just me
down here. It's Casey, and Chad,

-and Emily, and Kevin.
-Right.

And that's what inspires me,
you know, to keep on going.

And, uh, it's just...
Inspiration is just contagious.

NARRATOR: The dive community here isn't
just removing the problems,

they're also restoring the kelp.

Biologist Sara Gonzalez
is collecting spores.

She then nurtures them
in her lab for six weeks.

When the plants are just
a fraction of an inch tall,

Sara secures them to the seabed

to help them make it through the storms.

I'm so happy. It is such a joy
to see them grow up.

Now there's some of them
are nine meters tall.

Swimming around through there,
it looks just like any other kelp forest.

NARRATOR: In time,

this experiment could be rolled out
on a bigger scale,

helping to regenerate kelp forests
all along the coasts.

MIKE: What Sara is doing is brilliant.

This is a story of perseverance.

Nobody wakes up in the morning and says,
"I'm going to save the world."

But people like Alex and Keith,
they get up in the morning and they say,

"I'm going to take a step forward.

"And if I get a few ba*ls out,
if I get a few urchins out,

"it's gonna make the world a little bit
closer to being a better place."

NARRATOR: From coast to coast,

everyday heroes are helping
protect wildlife...

using whatever skills they have.

Sometimes huge success can be achieved
with just a camera...

and a lot of perseverance.

The southern swamps.

A secret world of wildlife.

Most elusive of all...

the Florida panther.

North America's most endangered cat.

Once very common
in the southeastern states,

they were nearly wiped out completely.

Now they only exist
in Florida's wildest places...

which are rapidly disappearing.

CARLTON: You could say
that Florida is a fractured paradise.

We have now more than 1,000 people
moving here every single day.

And that leads, conservatively,
to 100,000 acres of land lost

to development every year.

NARRATOR:
Carlton Ward is a wildlife photographer.

For the last five years,

he and fellow conservationist,
Malia Byrtus,

have been on a mission to connect

the remaining wild fragments of Florida
into a protected corridor for wildlife.

[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]

[FUSION OF ANIMAL NOISES]

NARRATOR: To win public support
for the corridor project,

Carlton and Malia have spent
many months in the swamps,

trying to get pictures of the panthers.

MALIA: These animals are so elusive
that we have to set cameras up

in environments like this
where the actual animal triggers

the camera themselves.
And that's how we get images.

And we're able to see
their natural behavior

without any impact on the animal.

Gosh. I like this angle.

NARRATOR: Malia's best panther impression
helps set the camera's focus,

and they're ready to go.

When a panther comes to this spot,
it's going to have a choice to turn around

and walk back or to jump over.

There's a log here,
it might give it a stepping-stone.

We're hoping to get a picture of
a Florida panther walking down this trail,

pausing at the edge of that water,
and then flying through the air

to get to the other side.

NARRATOR:
Carlton is an eighth-generation Floridian.

He's deeply connected
to these wild places.

CARLTON: These swamps are so remote
and so... harsh to many people

that they've been spared the bulldozer
and spared the development.

They're a last remnant and a reminder
of a primordial, wild past

where you can step down
into this dark, tannic water,

and this quiet just surrounds you.

[BEAR HUFFS]

CARLTON:
As someone working with camera traps,

you get a sense
of who you're sharing that space with.

You'll start to recognize
that same panther

or that same family of black bears.

And so, it's a window
into this truly wild world.

[COW MOOS]

NARRATOR: But the wild animals don't have
this corridor to themselves.

They share it with cattle where it passes
through Florida's ranch land.

On this ranch in Immokalee,

they often run into black bears moving
between different patches of forest.

They need the wildlife corridor
as much as the panthers.

Because it's such a hot spot for bears,
this ranch is a great place to catch one.

SHELBY: Yeah. All right.

NARRATOR: Carlton and Malia are working
with government scientists

to study the bears' health and movements.

The best way to lure in a hungry bear?

They can tell you're trying
to attract something.

NARRATOR: Donuts. Every time.

MALIA: Glazed, jelly-filled, powdered.

[BANJO MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Now all the team has to do is
sit tight... and wait.

One of the biggest obstacles
for the wildlife corridor...

are human highways.

Around 20 panthers are k*lled
each year on Florida's roads.

[TRAFFIC NOISE]

NARRATOR:
So, when they built the highway I-75,

the Department of Transportation worked
with conservationists

to find a way to keep the animals safe.

CARLTON: When the planners developed
that stretch of interstate,

the entire length of it has
eight-foot-tall cross fence.

And there's
more than 30 underpass structures

going beneath that road.

As a result, you never have panthers

and bears k*lled
on that stretch of highway.

Which side do you think?

MALIA: That looks good to me.

CARLTON:
Our cameras show that they really work.

We see bears, bobcats, coyotes...

deer.

All these animals are using these places.

NARRATOR: The team captures
a very special moment...

a mother panther and her one-year-old cub.

It's a great sign. Crystal clear evidence

that the wildlife corridor
is starting to work,

and panthers are traveling more freely.

CARLTON: It's just amazing to sit back
and watch the hundreds of cars

and tractor-trailers whizzing by

and wonder how many people know
that, like, at certain moments,

there's a Florida panther standing
beneath them.

Or a Florida black bear
and its cubs traveling

from one patch of forest to the next.

[BEAR HUFFS]

NARRATOR: Back at the ranch,
the donuts have delivered.

There's a large bear in the trap.

CARLTON: This is a big bear.

SHELBY: Yeah.
Probably around 350 pounds. Maybe bigger.

He's adult.

SHELBY: Yeah, definitely an adult male.

NARRATOR:
First job for Shelby and her team is

to send him off for a snooze.

[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]

-SHELBY: All right, Ashley.
-ASHLEY: Yep.

-SHELBY: All right, he's coming down.
-ASHLEY: I got his head.

All right, he's 355.

-SHELBY: Three fifty-five.
-ASHLEY: Yeah.

So, he is an adult male.
He's very healthy-looking.

I would guess he's probably
maybe around six or seven years old.

And overall, he's a great-looking bear.

And hopefully,
he'll live a long life out here.

To be able to see the bear,
and hear the bear, and smell the bear,

and feel the strength of the bear
makes you respect them

even that much more.

The bear is given an ear tag
so they can identify him in the future.

SHELBY: Ear tag code.

FEMALE RESEARCHER: The code is
short black, short black, medium black.

CARLTON: There's a chance
that this bear will show up again

on camera 25, 50, 100 miles away,

and that'll give information
about their territory

and how they travel through the corridor.

NARRATOR: It's time to wake up.
This dozy bear won't remember a thing.

But the information he provides
will be crucial

to understanding how people and wildlife
can coexist along the corridor.

[ALL WHOOPING]

Pretty amazing to see it run off
into the wild.

Sitting in that cage quiet...
and then bam!

FEMALE RESEARCHER 2: There you go.

So fast. Jumps out of the cage,
and then gone, back into the forest.

MALIA: This does give me
an extreme amount of hope.

I'm seeing with my own eyes

that this bear is using
the Florida Wildlife Corridor,

and that means the world.

That means that all of our work
that we're doing

in collaboration with
so many other folks is, it's working.

NARRATOR:
Covering nearly 18 million acres,

the Florida Wildlife Corridor

was officially recognized
in state law in 2021.

Carlton, Malia, and their team
have achieved their dream.

Their pictures have shown people
the amazing animals on their doorstep

and won the support needed
to secure their future.

MALIA: Seeing the images of the panther
in its natural and wild environment,

it... it's incredible.

-That is wild. That is wild.
-[CHUCKLES]

CARLTON: You can see
the eyes of this Florida panther

coming into the frame, stop at the edge
of this swamp creek, and then leap,

with all this strength and grace,
right past the camera.

MALIA: Wow!

CARLTON: And that panther is gonna carry
with it the story and the hopes

of these wild places
where it still makes its home.

NARRATOR: Wildlife heroes come
from every corner of the continent.

And from every walk of life.

All along the West Coast,

individuals are helping
to make a difference...

even in the smallest of ways.

Every year, people gather
on Oregon's shoreline

for one of the world's
greatest wildlife events...

-BOY: Do you see it, Mom?
-MOM: Yeah, I see it.

[WATER GUSHES FROM BLOWHOLE]

NARRATOR: ...the gray whale migration.

It's a 12,000-mile journey...

from Mexico to the Alaskan Arctic.

The whales are a welcome sight

to those who keep watch for their return.

Retired firefighter Ara has found
a new purpose in life.

He's now a volunteer whale observer

and helps educate people
who come to see them.

How big are they?

Uh, the gray whales, they're about as big
as a school bus. The ones we're seeing.

-MOM: You see the orange thing? Okay.
-BOY: Yeah.

ARA: When I was in the fire service,
I generally dealt with people

having the worst day of their life.

And now what I'm doing is
totally different.

And when people see a whale,
and they get excited,

I just realize they're having
one of the best days of their life.

-[BOTH GIGGLING]
-ARA: And that's pretty exciting.

[WATER GUSHES FROM BLOWHOLE]

NARRATOR: Like hundreds of others,

Ara uses an app on his phone
to record sightings,

including a note
of any whales in trouble.

Thanks, in part, to this information,
scientists have discovered

a serious problem.

Following a recent peak in population,

gray whale numbers have suddenly
dropped by 25 percent.

It's a mystery that needs to be solved.

Professor Leigh Torres,

one of the world's top experts
on gray whales,

is on the case.

PILOT: Ready for takeoff.

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIR]

NARRATOR: With a bit of help
from the U.S. Coast Guard,

Leigh is heading out
to track the whale's progress

along the Oregon coastline.

LEIGH: There's a blow at three o'clock,
about 200 meters.

Two blows, if we can bank around.

Another blow, so there's two whales
right next to each other.

We do these flights four times a month,
and we collect some great data

about their distribution
across these coastal oceans.

[WATER GUSHES FROM BLOWHOLE]

LEIGH: It's really important
because a lot of them are washing up dead

and skinny on the beach.

NARRATOR: Since 2019,

more than 500 dead whales
have been discovered along the coast.

At the same time,
the number of ship strikes has gone up.

The whales seem to be
more and more vulnerable to collisions.

[SHIP HORN BLARES]

NARRATOR: Another danger
is getting tangled in fishing gear.

Leigh and her team are studying
their local whale population,

to discover why
they're running into trouble.

Every now and then, we shut down
the engine and have a look and a listen.

It's just a little puff on the horizon,
a difference in the smell of the air,

a sound of the blow.
And then we're on our game.

-Oh, blow right here. Yeah.
-MALE RESEARCHER: Yeah.

-CLARA: I've got it.
-Cool.

Right over there. By that other one.

-Oh. It's Pac-Man.
-Yeah! [CHUCKLES]

LEIGH: So, this is a whale we know.

It's got this really distinctive
Pac-Man-looking mark on its left side.

Oh, it's wonderful. It's like seeing
an old friend on the street, you know?

Just, uh, knowing,
"Oh, you're here, you're feeding.

"So, yeah, let's hang out
for a little bit."

-MALE RESEARCHER: Oh, right here.
-Holy moly! Hi, Pac-Man.

And that's a whale.

So, now we'll just... hang around and wait
for poop. See if we can get lucky.

NARRATOR: The team is trying to sniff out
any possible clues in the whale's poop.

LEIGH: All clean, no poop?

CLARA: All clean. No poop.

Oh, whale, give us a poop.

-Oh.
-MALE RESEARCHER: Whoa!

-LEIGH: That's a big arch.
-MALE RESEARCHER: Come on.

-Oh, poop!
-LEIGH: Poop! Poop!

Get the net in, net in.

Nice swooshing.

NARRATOR: Even just a little bit will do.

MALE RESEARCHER: I have some.

Oh, nice. Oh, that's a good sample. Sweet!

-MALE RESEARCHER: Good job, Clara!
-[ALL CHUCKLING]

LEIGH: Nice, Pac-Man. Nice work, dude!

NARRATOR: By analyzing their poop,

Leigh can tell
if her study group are stressed.

LEIGH: What we found is

that skinny whales have
higher stress levels.

And so, like us,
maybe they get hangry, right?

So, when you just don't get enough food,
everything seems to bother us more

and stress us out more.

And it might be similar for whales.

The million-dollar question really is why
these whales aren't getting enough food?

NARRATOR:
Part of the answer lies 2,000 miles north,

in the whales' arctic feeding grounds
at the end of their journey.

LEIGH: With climate change,
prey is becoming less abundant,

less predictable to the whales.

Many of them are suffering.
They're malnourished and skinny,

which is impacting their ability
to survive.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: The whales are stressed out,
starving, and exhausted.

So they find it harder to move out
of the way of the ships and fishing nets.

But people can help
simply by watching them.

[WATER GUSHES FROM BLOWHOLE]

Beautiful. Beautiful. Magnificent animal.

NARRATOR: Ara's app sends alerts
to fishing boats and other ships

so they know where the whales are feeding
and can avoid them.

ARA: I believe
the average citizen who comes out

on a regular basis and observes,
they can see changes that are occurring.

And when they notice those changes,
they can alert somebody.

And you're making a difference...
even in your own little way.

NARRATOR: There are times when being
a wildlife hero takes real bravery.

In the battle to protect
our wildest places,

often the most powerful weapon is
your voice.

Alaska.

Up here are some of the last areas

of untouched wilderness left
on the planet.

At nearly 20 million acres,

the Arctic Refuge is
the largest wildlife reserve in the U.S.

Home to a vast herd of 150,000 caribou.

They have a special connection
with the people who live here.

Known as the "Caribou People,"
the Gwich'in have roamed this land

for over 40,000 years.

Bernadette Demientieff is
one of the lead voices in the tribe.

She and her family have come
to their ancestral hunting lands.

[ETHEREAL MUSIC PLAYING]

BERNADETTE: This place is sacred to us.

Just like how
some people consider a church.

Our ancestors respected,
honored these lands and these waters,

our animals, and we have to carry that on.

NARRATOR: But Bernadette hasn't always
felt such a strong connection

to her roots.

After high school, I lost myself.
I started drinking...

and I walked away from my family.

I really went down a path
that I am not proud of.

But I see now today
that it made me who I am.

And I'm here now to share
my responsibility as a Gwich'in.

NARRATOR: Bernadette and her people have
a major fight on their hands.

Their most sacred site is
the coastal plain

where the caribou come
each year to give birth.

But beneath the surface lies
over four billion barrels of oil.

The oil companies in nearby Prudhoe Bay
want to drill into the birthing grounds.

That could put the very survival
of the caribou in jeopardy.

There was a time when we were able
to communicate with the animals.

We communicated with the caribou.

And we made a vow
to take care of each other.

Now it's our turn to take care of them
and to protect their calving grounds.

NARRATOR:
As spokesperson for the Gwich'in,

Bernadette has spent eight years

battling to get a bill to protect
the Refuge passed through Washington.

Protecting the coastal plain is
protecting our identity

and our human rights.

For us, this is a matter of physical,
spiritual, and cultural survival.

BERNADETTE: I believe
that one of the most powerful tools

that you have is your voice.

I just got a big mouth.
I just... [CHUCKLES]

I absolutely refuse to allow somebody

to push their way into our homelands,
and do whatever they want,

and, um, sit idly by.
I won't allow it... that to happen.

Creator, we thank you for this day.
We thank you for bringing us together.

We thank you for this land,
for the water, for the animals.

We vow to protect it.

Today and always.

NARRATOR:
And then a phone call from Washington.

Oh my gosh. You guys, I've just...
[LAUGHS WITH JOY] Oh my gosh.

The bill just passed the House
and it's going to the Senate.

And, um, they did a count.

Um, and we got enough in the Senate
to... to restore protection

for the Arctic Refuge.
A lot of hard work paid off. [SIGHS]

Just never give up
for what you believe in.

I just can't believe it.
This was just, like, impossible.

One year ago, this was totally impossible.

And now it's happening. And it's just...
it's just really in my heart.

Just really... Just feeling it.

-GWICH'IN WOMAN: I am proud of you.
-[BERNADETTE WHIMPERS, SNIFFLES]

BERNADETTE: We win this fight together.

Standing as one, not just Gwich'in people,

but all of us.

NARRATOR: From the southern swamps...

to the northern plains...

people are finding new ways
to enable us to live alongside nature.

RAE: I love that we're moving back
in the direction of sharing lands

with wild animals

because that's how we as people
on this continent started,

and that's what our future
is gonna be too.

NARRATOR: America is a land of heroes...

with one thing in common...

the courage to protect
our most precious wild treasures.

ALEX: As long as you're passionate
about what you're fighting for,

there's no question whether you'll succeed
or not because when your heart's involved,

nothing else can stop you.

[MELLOW COUNTRY MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC CONCLUDES]