- Coming up on "This American Land"... - We lose a football field of land every 100 minutes.

- Restoring that amount of real estate takes a master builder.

Calling Mother Nature.

- We're actually detecting that heat coming off the animal.

- Counting herds of wildlife and keeping everybody safe.

- By flying higher, further away from the animals being studied, we can take a look at them when they're undisturbed and collect higher quality data.

- One of the Sky Island Mountains of Southern Arizona.

It's a magical, magical place.

Once you let go of all those worries and things and just start moving, your body takes over.

There's a knowledge there that you have to honor.

Oh, yep.

- Yep.

Okay, we'll turn back.

- Yep.

- Oh!

- I'm going down.

- I'm going down.

[laughter] - Hey.

- Ah, [bleep].

- Hey, don't get bogged down 'cause the magic starts now on "This American Land."

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪ - Funding for "This American Land" provided by the Walton Family Foundation.

- Hello, and welcome to a new season of "This American Land."

I'm your host, Ed Arnett, and we'll take you to the rivers, forests, and seashores that we all treasure to meet the people dedicated to conserving our natural resources.

And this year, you'll see something new-- reporting from young environmental journalists already digging for answers to our conservation challenges.

America's shrinking, and most people don't even know it.

Huge amounts of land are disappearing off the coast of Louisiana, what's being called the greatest ecological catastrophe in North America.

Brad Hicks shows us why our efforts to turn the tide may require help from a master marsh builder.

- When Ryan Lambert looks across Louisiana's Barataria Basin... - I get nauseated.

[pensive music] - He sees his state sinking before his eyes.

- Everything for 6.3 miles out there was gone.

All gone.

- He remembers the maze of islands and bayous that used to reach the horizon.

Now all of it has vanished.

- Not just here.

It's spreading like a plague.

I mean, it's just like Pac-Man gobbling up the land.

[imitates munching] The fact is, we did it to ourselves.

- The loss of Louisiana's coastline started a century ago.

The state was built by the Mississippi River with sediment from the middle of America.

But when we corralled the river with levees for navigation and flood control, the land-building sediment that created Southern Louisiana was cut off.

The coastline started sinking.

- We lose a football field of land every 100 minutes here in coastal Louisiana.

We've already lost the size of the state of Delaware.

- Homes have disappeared, habitat has been destroyed, and an entire way of life... - Born and raised right here in the bayou.

- Is on the edge.

- We catch oyster, we shrimp, we crab.

We do it all to make a living.

- The land is gone by the rate faster than what I can even imagine.

- Gleason Alexis comes from a family line of oystermen.

- We gonna lose our community down here.

- Without the islands and bayous, oysters don't have protected places to grow.

And Gulf oysters need a specific mix of freshwater and saltwater.

The land loss allows saltwater to intrude and upsets that balance.

- We're in serious trouble.

- Louisiana produces nearly half the nation's oyster harvest.

But the loss of land goes beyond an economic and ecological disaster.

The bayous historically formed a barrier that protected populated areas from storm surge.

Without that line of protection... - Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were really a wake-up call.

- Nearly 2,000 people in Louisiana lost their lives.

- And we don't have a lot of time.

And that is a real concern.

- In the channel where the worst of Katrina's storm surge swept inland, a welded cross honors the victims and a nearly two-mile long wall now protects New Orleans.

But even the arsenal of protective concrete and steel built since those 2005 storms cannot do the job alone.

- Rebuilding that natural buffer in front of the levees is really important for helping protect the city.

- These piles of mud are part of the solution-- 2,700 acres of new land, the biggest marsh creation project in state history.

- We have to think big because that matches the size and scale of the challenges that we face.

- Mud dredged from the bottom forms the foundation for the new wetlands.

The natural buffers will slow storm surges before they reach the levee system, but they also do something steel and concrete cannot-- they create habitat... - So that the ecosystem and the animals that lived here can return to it the way it was.

- And healing.

- It's emotional, I guess, is one way to be able to put it, when you're able to come out and see new land that you could literally walk out and stand on where it was once open water.

- But without that replenishing sediment from the river, the human-made marshes will ultimately sink under their own weight.

- And so it will go away eventually, 20, 30 years down the line.

- To build marshes and bayous that can stand the test of time, you have to turn to the expert, the master of marsh building, Mother Nature.

[sweeping music] 60 miles downstream from New Orleans, Ryan Lambert is taking us to a place called Quarantine Bay.

- All right, we're coming up on Neptune Pass right here.

- Neptune Pass started as a levee break in 1969 during Hurricane Camille.

In the half century since, the break has gotten bigger and bigger.

Now 10% of all the water from the Mississippi flows out this opening into Quarantine Bay.

- The river's gonna go where it wants to go.

- And as we enter this special place, we slow down, just like the river water does when it deposits its sediment here.

- Once all the sediment gets put out here, and when the high river, when the river drops out, those sandbars will vegetate within six weeks.

And in 2020, I came here, and these were knee high, these trees.

- And now they're 20 plus feet tall.

- Those are 30 feet.

I mean, you could literally see Louisiana building.

[pensive music] ♪ ♪ - What do you see out here that gives you hope?

- So we see all different types of vegetation, complex habitat.

We have things like willow trees that are starting to take hold.

- On our journey through Quarantine Bay, we're joined by Alicia Renfrow with the National Wildlife Federation.

- We see white ibis.

We see glossy ibis.

There's some stilts.

There was a roseate spoonbill, as well as some pelicans.

- To better understand the new land growth, she's going to take a core sample.

How about if we walk out to the bar?

- Yeah, that might work.

It's a little soft.

- Oh, hey, we're getting holes here.

- Okay, you're hitting the fine sediment.

Oh, yep.

- Yep.

Okay, we'll turn back.

I'm going down.

- Hey.

- Ah, [bleep].

- I can't--no coaching right from the boat, please.

[laughs] - We had better luck back on the boat.

So what does this tell you about what's happening here?

- So there's, like, this fine mineral sediment coming from the river that's being deposited over here.

It's, like, nice and sticky so the vegetation can come in.

And once the vegetation establishes, it will capture even more sediment.

- See that splay right there?

That's the newest land in the world right there.

- Ryan Lambert has discovered with a little nudge, Mother Nature will make the new land even faster.

- Well, I'm gonna tell you how simple this really is.

We cut three crevasses, which is essentially three little canals, to feed the water from that main channel and let it slow down and let the sediment come out of it.

And when it swirled, it built all this land.

This was all open water, everything you see here.

- But the oystermen say there's no time for nature.

- Go dredge it right now.

- They want the quick fix.

- You're telling me you're gonna bring me land, and you're sending me water.

How water is gonna bring you land?

- More human-made marshes... - You see all this?

Fill that in.

- Even if the land won't last.

- Need the river to add to that sediment every year.

If not, you just sink into the abyss.

♪ ♪ [twangy guitar music] - When wildlife managers need to know if a certain species is thriving or if its numbers are falling, they use population studies to help make decisions.

One of the best ways to get that data is from the sky.

Aerial surveys using infrared technology helps keep big mammals from being spooked and also keep researchers far from danger.

We take you over the skies of West Texas in a story from our partners at The Wildlife Society.

- All right, it is 5:00 in the morning, and we are over Elephant Mountain.

[soft music] All right, we got the target at 11 o'clock.

That's gonna be a mule deer.

We are surveying for really any large mammal.

Bighorn sheep and mule deer is the main focus.

Anything we see we're gonna count today, as we're doing a full census of the area.

My name is Drew Trausch.

I'm a wildlife biologist and aerial sensor operator for Owyhee Air Research, based in Nampa, Idaho.

Aerial surveys have been going on since the '40s.

- Over this bleak area, trained observers record data on ducks and geese when and where they see them.

- Since then, Owyhee Air Research has developed a method of using infrared technology to do this.

We have another one right there.

This aircraft is actually equipped with a Flir gimbaled sensor that is able to look underneath the plane in 360 degrees, and what it's detecting is a thermal signature of the wildlife, so that rather than relying on spotting a brown mule deer on a brown hillside, we're actually detecting the heat coming off the animal.

And there he is.

Okay, very good.

So this is our P68 aircraft specifically equipped for our wildlife survey mission.

Our flight crew consists of a biologist, an ASO, and then the natural resource pilot, who is specially trained for these sorts of missions.

While we're conducting wildlife surveys, the aerial sensor operator is sitting in the back manipulating the sensor with a very complicated hand controller, allowing them to get maximum detection probability while they're conducting these surveys, and they're viewing that all on the monitor here, which is able to also communicate with the monitor in the front for the pilot to see the wildlife.

Population monitoring is important because it allows wildlife managers to make informed decisions about their wildlife population.

What's really important with that is to have very accurate data to make those decisions.

♪ ♪ One of the major advantages to aerial infrared surveys is we can fly higher, which is not only safer for the crew on board, but also safer for the wildlife.

Low-flying aircraft can spook herds of animals, causing them to run and opening up the potential for injury.

And it's also a lot harder to collect accurate data when animals are on the move.

So by flying higher, further away from the animals being studied, we can take a look at them when they're undisturbed and collect higher quality data.

[twangy guitar music] - Artists, musicians, and writers bring depth and joy to their works by capturing the beauty and unpredictability of nature.

In his series Inspiration Point, Colin Hare will be introducing us to some of these creative folks.

Let's go to Arizona, where one climber stays motivated by touching rock as often as possible.

- This morning, I am dirt roading it here in Arizona, headed out to meet Angela Soliz.

She's a painter in Tucson.

When Angela needs a little bit of inspiration, she comes out here and goes rock climbing.

- I work in the city teaching painting, and I love it there.

But to keep myself centered among the chaos, yeah, I have to drive out to the mountains.

It's non-negotiable for me.

[soft folksy music] - I haven't told her that I don't love heights.

She said that we're gonna send it, which is terrifying.

- Colin!

- Made it.

- It's great to meet you.

We're in the middle of the Dragoon Mountains right now, one of the Sky Island Mountains of Southern Arizona.

It's a magical, magical place, one of my favorite places on Earth.

This route that you're about to get on was the first outdoor route I ever did.

- Really?

- Yep, it was three years ago.

I was so green, so new.

It felt foreign and thrilling.

It felt like the hardest climb in the world.

And I was hooked.

Climbing will change you.

Painting will change you.

- How does this place end up on your canvas?

- Mountains are a huge motif in my work.

They'll take everything you've got.

They take your heart and your soul to climb them, to meet them, to be worthy of them.

You know, it takes a lot of courage to face the blank page, to follow your dreams.

As a trauma survivor, as someone who struggles with anxiety, with self-doubt, coming out here is a way that I stay grounded in myself and stay in a perspective that helps me meet life with an open heart.

We're just gonna tighten that up through both hard points.

Have fun up there.

- All right.

You don't think so much about the connection between art and courage, necessarily.

You think creativity, you think inspiration.

And it does to take that leap, to start, but also to put yourself out there 'cause it's personal, right?

- It's personal.

This is what I have to do to be able to paint what I paint.

Your helmet is on.

You're ready to climb.

- Let's see if I can figure it out what you feel on the rock.

- There's a point where you get in a piece of art about halfway, and then you start to feel that fear of messing up.

- I made it to the top.

That's it.

We're done, right?

Time to go home.

All right, so it looks like it gets harder from here.

- It does.

- Many times, I've been in the midst of something, and I get--I get nervous because it's like, all right, you're in the middle of it now.

Don't mess it up now.

- Exactly.

- Yeah, that's tricky.

Yeah.

- What comes on the other side of that is magic.

You know, that's where the gold is.

- Sure.

- But it takes courage to trust.

What is on that canvas is meant to be on that canvas, and it'll serve its purpose.

You got this.

- Maybe when I get to the top.

Right now, my fingers hurt.

[groans] - Being able to hold an open mind for letting it get better, it takes a lot of courage, especially in the world we're living in.

Nice job.

- [grunts] You can tell me if this is cheesy-- the idea of, like, being at the top of the climb, looking out, seeing this new perspective... Got it!

- How's it feel?

- Whoo!

Is there any connection between that and then standing back and seeing your painting finished?

- 100%.

We talk about being blocked as an artist, about not being able to finish the work or find the inspiration.

And I feel like I get to practice getting in a flow with every route.

Once you let go of all those worries and things and just start moving, your body takes over.

There's a knowledge there that you have to honor.

And the painting is the same kind of journey for me.

If I didn't have climbing, and if I didn't have this kind of outlet, I think I'd still be toiling away, trying to find that thing that's meant to come out for the world.

♪ ♪ [twangy guitar music] - We're pleased to share the work of the next generation of environmental journalists, presented in partnership with Planet Forward.

This project from George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs helps equip students around the world with storytelling skills.

From Wisconsin, here's a story on a 25-year effort to bring back sturgeon to the Milwaukee River.

- My name is Mary Holleback.

I'm the citizen science manager for Riveredge Nature Center, and I've been the project coordinator, the on-site project coordinator for the sturgeon project since 2006, so 19 years.

[soft wondrous music] The Return the Sturgeon Project is a 25-year partnership with the Wisconsin DNR and Riveredge Nature Center.

We are currently in year 19, and this incredible partnership has the goal of reestablishing a breeding population of lake sturgeon to the Milwaukee River.

Starting in 1890, you would not be able to see a lake sturgeon on the Milwaukee River.

Habitat destruction, pollution, and overfishing on a monstrous scale reduced their population to about 1% of historic levels.

And in 2006, this project was begun to try to remedy that.

Since that beginning, we have released 22,042 lake sturgeon back into the Milwaukee River watershed.

- Sturgeon are an amazing type of fish, very prehistoric and predate the Great Lakes, and they live a long time-- males, somewhere between 50 and 80 years and females 80 to-- the oldest ones around 150 years.

So very old fish.

- They run up the rivers in the spring, and they look for fast flowing water with cobble to boulder-sized rock.

Their eggs will stick to the rocks, and they need the current to bring oxygen to them.

They take about ten days to hatch, and then the young spend the first handful of years in estuary, the lower river into the lake.

After five or six years, those fish might spend the next 15, 20 years out in the lake.

When they go out in the lake, we don't see them again until they're coming back to spawn as adults.

- As the impetus for lake sturgeon kind of evolved around the Great Lakes, we transitioned to the sturgeon rearing trailer, which sits on Riveredge property here in Newburg.

In 2006, trying to stock, you know, approximately 1,000 sturgeon each year.

I think it's probably one of the only projects in North America, and possibly the world, where we have a group that's dedicated for about 150 days a year to take care of these fish, and they do an excellent job.

- As a sturgeon volunteer, it's pretty much like having an aquarium at home.

You do the same type of things.

You wanna have your fish have some food.

You want the water to be clean.

You want the temperatures to be about right.

[soft music] - We often will take groups to interact with these fish, and they really get to see the connection between the health of the water and this amazing living thing that's a part of that ecosystem.

- Being part of this project is really fun because it's incredible exposure for people to see that, like, women are also in fisheries.

Women that look like me are in fisheries.

It gives a role model for other people to look up to, especially having kids around that get to see, like, oh, you're a scientist?

Like, yeah, I'm a fish scientist.

Like, you can be one too.

[laughs] - Sturgeon Fest is the final epic ending to this six-month trip to try and get these fish from the egg into a six-inch fish that gets released.

With raising the sturgeon, I think Sturgeon Fest is just a good opportunity for education.

- You're gonna reach it over, and you're gonna take... - If we can get them back in the Milwaukee River where they were spawning originally and hopefully keep them in Lake Michigan, it'd be fantastic.

- Wow, that's so cool.

- Each year, we're seeing 20 to 50 fish return to the river.

Most of them are from the Riveredge stocking program.

We have seen mostly males.

We might have seen the first female this year.

So we anticipate seeing some of the females mature and return for spawning in the next few years.

- These fish live over a century, so in all likelihood, a handful of the fish that we've raised with these hands will outlive us.

And that's a remarkable thought, to think that a century from now, the river and the lake and the fish will all be so much healthier than they are now.

- It's showing everyone that the river can get cleaner, and it is clean enough now to support a lot more species than it did 100 years ago.

- A lot of people see them, love them, wanna be involved in them.

It allows you to bring out the conversation about larger conservation.

- Just imagine sturgeon as, like, the really big puppy that you never had, and you get to, like, hang out with him in the water.

- I think Mary should probably be considered the queen of the sturgeon for all she has done to make this work.

It's a group effort that makes this work.

- The amount of partnership and involvement we have from Riveredge is-- without them, you know, this project wouldn't be the success that it is today.

[twangy guitar music] - Farmers usually dig into the ground for clues about soil health, pests, or drought.

Now there's a tool that can keep track of every drop of water they use.

We sent correspondent Brad Hicks to Nebraska, where farmers are looking to the sky to help protect their bottom line.

- If you've ever eaten Doritos, good chance Joe Walgren grew the corn in those chips.

- We grow a lot of grain for them.

- He doesn't just harvest with his combine, he collects information.

- It's just a wonderful tool to gather data.

- And farming on the scale he does, good data can save dollars.

But for decades, a key piece of that data puzzle has been missing.

Farmers could measure how much water they pumped but not where that water was going.

- Just because the water gets poured onto the field doesn't mean the crop is actually consuming that water.

- And across the High Plains, that's a problem.

The High Plains aquifer, the biggest in America, holds a lot of water.

- You could fill several of the Great Lakes.

- But some parts have become dangerously overdrawn.

- There's areas where we've pumped so much water that we can't get water out of it anymore.

- So to better measure where the water is going, Jim Schneider and his team are looking to the sky.

- They've been flying these satellites around the Earth since 1985.

It's called the Landsat satellites.

- The satellites use thermal sensors to measure evapotranspiration, ET, which shows how much water crops and soil are sending back into the atmosphere.

- ET is usually the missing component to balance the water budget.

- But until recently, that information wasn't widely available.

A cooperative effort called OpenET is changing that.

OpenET puts the Landsat information in a format farmers can actually use.

- The lighter yellow colors are less ET, and the darker is more ET.

If you zoom in, you can see that it's being measured on a field by field basis.

- So it's literally telling us how much water the crops are using.

It's really beyond what we were ever able to do in the past.

- That's better data.

That's actionable data.

- A little science in your snack, coming from space.

In Nebraska, Brad Hicks reporting.

[twangy guitar music] - Now a look at some stories in our next show.

- They don't have to water it.

They don't have to feed it.

They don't have to maintain it.

It is definitely the easiest garden you'll ever plant.

- Ever thought about growing an oyster garden?

These Florida communities have creative cures for a threatened population.

[birds squawking] Bird watchers are delighted, and birds are heaping five-star reviews on this winter resting spot.

- They're flying several thousand miles-- likely over 3,000 miles, probably closer to 5,000 miles.

And they're doing that, you know, twice a year.

So it's quite a monumental migration.

And what's unique about tundra swans and high Arctic nesting waterfowl is that they're migrating six months out of the year.

It requires a tremendous amount of energy.

- That's our show, and thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at EnvironmentNewsTrust.com.

And you can always see us on PBS Passport.

We'll see you next time.

- Funding for "This American Land" provided by the Walton Family Foundation.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪