- Coming up on "This American Land"... - Oh, he wasn't thrilled.

We were definitely in his territory.

- We'll show you some territory in South Georgia with both wildness and calm.

And you'll meet some Okefenokee swamp heroes.

- Learned to swim right here, caught my first fish.

- This is a place of no compare.

It is really, really amazing.

- We hit the back roads of the Sunshine State and tune in to some old Florida vibes.

- All of this is snow melt from the top of the Rocky Mountains off the Continental Divide.

- There is hope in the Colorado River.

You can see it through Dave Showalter's lens.

Time to get the whole gang together.

"This American Land" is cruising your way.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪ - Hello and welcome to "This American Land."

I'm your host, Ed Arnett.

And we found some great stories on the conservation of our natural resources, our landscapes, waters, and wildlife.

And you'll meet the people who fight for these places, from parks to mountains to swamps.

First, we'll go to Southeast Georgia and one of the most remote, mysterious places in North America.

Recently, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge became the first swamp ever honored as a World Heritage Site.

This recognition by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, highlights landmarks with irreplaceable treasures.

There's an unfiltered beauty in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and profound courage in the people working to shield it from modern day threats.

Here's Marsha Walton.

[exciting music] ♪ ♪ - All you gotta do is breathe that swamp air in.

Just...[inhales] Take a good, slow, long, deep breath of it.

And it's just clean and fresh and makes you feel alive, just makes you feel good.

- A huge peat bog in South Georgia and North Florida, always moving, always changing.

Creek Muskogee Indians called it Okefenokee.

[twangy country music] - This is what peat is, really plant parts that have not fully decomposed.

So I'm actually standing on floating peat.

But it's a very good example of why it's called the Land of the Trembling Earth.

- This swamp is, well, enormous.

- You could pu the entirety of New York City inside of the Okefenokee, including all the Boroughs.

And there would stil be room left over.

- It's North America' largest blackwater wetland.

- It's only slightly colored like tea.

But that's from the tannic acids that are released as the plants begin to slowly decay.

All the water is rainwater.

So it's very clean water.

♪ ♪ We're heading out into the historic Suwannee Canal.

This is the canal that was dug between 1891 to 1894 by the Suwannee Canal Company.

And again, this was originally dug to try to drain the swamp, the heart of the swamp, into the St.

Mary's River.

But we were lucky, and they went bankrupt before they completed that.

Hey, guys.

Bert, good to see you.

Look at those spikes.

Isn't that great?

- Michael Lusk manages the refuge for the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

The swamp is a resilient natural laboratory that can heal when there's a disruption-- fires, floods, or drought.

- The ecosystem benefits are enormous.

It stores carbon to keep that carbon out of the atmosphere and keep those greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Wetlands serve as a sponge so that if there's a hurricane that moves in and it drops a lot of water at one time, it helps absorb that water and stop downstream flooding.

- So the swamp knows how to regenerate itself?

- Absolutely, yes, yes.

It's been here for thousands of years.

And our goal is to let it be as natural as possible.

- And its beauty can take your breath away, like in this rookery teeming with birds.

- We'll see great egrets, little blue herons, cattle egrets, snowy egrets coming together to roost together.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - Visitors can paddle out to camping platforms for an unforgettable experience.

Lots of folks, when they go on holiday, they want a place that's kind of sparkly, that's kind of predictable.

You've got nothing that is scripted here.

- That's right.

The whole point of this being a wilderness is that to be a wild place.

So you're just surrounded by not only the visuals, but also the sounds of the swamp.

Oh.

He wasn't thrilled.

Though, we were definitely in his territory.

- Hundreds of plant species also thrive here, including these super-sized carnivorous pitcher plants.

- Most pitcher plants only get about 18 inches.

The Okefenokee pitcher plant gets to over 3 feet tall.

- Folkston, Georgia, gateway to the swamp and a historic railroad hub.

Some visitors share their enchantment when they visit Dixie McGurn at her Whistlin' Dixie Café.

- A lot of people have never seen anything like it.

And so they're just in constant amazement and saying, we'll be back.

We'll be back.

We're gonna bring our friends.

We're gonna bring our family.

They have got to see what we have seen.

[high-pitched yelling] - More than 100 years ago, folks known as swampers lived here cutting timber.

They communicated by swamp hollerin', sharing news and warnings.

[swamp hollering] In recent decades, locals have sounded their own alarms as companies proposed mining titanium dioxide just outside the eastern border of the refuge.

It's a type of sand used to whiten paint and toothpaste.

- The more we learned about the project, the more concerned that we got.

- Alice Keyes is conservation strategist with the nonprofit 100 Miles.

Dozens of organizations joined to alert this community that the mining could change water levels and destroy habitat.

- The people who were the most adamant about fighting against a risk to the swamp were the people who've been here for six, seven generations.

And I have just been in awe of how passionate they are about protecting this place.

- They've tried to log it out.

We've tried to drain it.

We still have folks that wanna mine next to it.

That could cause some irreparable harm.

But it keeps bouncing back.

I'm Josh Howard.

I'm the president of The Friends of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

Generally, I'm a conservative and I'm a Republican.

But when it comes to conservation and wild spaces, I don't believe business is more important than what we have out here.

- These volunteers recently dedicated a bench to Raymond Thek, who led tours at this homestead for years.

His son shared a spiritual side many feel about the swamp.

- It's such a perfect spot.

I mean, to come to and immediately give me a feeling that this is where my dad's spirit is, he's still here.

- And so I felt that we all owed an obligation to make sure we take care of what's natural and organic and authentic.

And that's God's place.

And so that's our task.

- Reverend Antwon Nixon worked with his congregation to raise awareness.

In 2025, a victory.

The Conservation Fund bought nearly 8,000 acres and mineral rights to halt mining in these ancient sand dunes known as Trail Ridge.

- I would say is a huge victory for all the people.

And the Okefenokee is for all of the people.

- You know, so nature replenishes itself.

Like you say, the wildfires have a purpose.

The rains, even the droughts have a purpose.

You know, all these things that we will feel like we would like to try to control and which may not happen, but ultimately, what we see is this place is still thriving in spite of the ups and the downs.

Nature keep always adapting.

I think that's a good lesson for mankind is to adapt with nature and to live according to those rules and not try to control it.

- Conservation is about science and building relationships.

And I think this is a perfect story that illustrates that.

[twangy country music] - Just a bit south of the Okefenokee, this week's inspiration point takes us to the back roads of Florida, places most vacationers will never see.

There are still remnants of a simple but challenging lifestyle, from fishing to logging to turpentine farms.

Colin Hare introduces us to someone still thriving in these rough but beautiful natural landscapes.

[upbeat guitar music] - Today, I am way out in Central Florida, the part of Florida you don't usually hear about.

It's lakes, it's pine forests, there's palm groves.

It's a truly unique part of the world.

I'm headed out here to meet Mr.

Old Florida Vibes himself, Hunter Turner.

- I'm the CEO of Old Florida Vibes, the chief exploring officer.

I take palm tree portrait videos and pin up illustrations that feature some of the wild and quirky places of Florida.

This place is really important to me because I don't think I would know what old Florida is without something like this.

If you are familiar with old Florida and you look for it, you can find it.

It's just you have to get to those back roads.

♪ ♪ - All right.

Arrived at the cabin.

How's it going?

- Glad to have you out.

- Made it to the backwoods here, huh?

A few times I was like, I might need to call him.

I don't know if I'm in the right place.

- It's a little bit of a ways back here.

But that's the way we like it, you know?

Secret spots.

- This is beautiful back here.

- My great-great-grandfather built this in 1937.

This was all turpentine farm back then.

And he worked for King Edward Cigar, took a bunch of-- maybe stole pieces from King Edward to build this place.

And he made it his own Shangri-La out here and a little slice of heaven.

Hearing the stories of the forefathers and what they've told out here of, we had to wrestle an alligator one day or, you know, Grandma used to do that on the side show all the time.

And it's like, man, there's no pictures of that left.

But we could just illustrate it.

The campfire stories that have been told out here are probably a huge source of inspiration, just imagining what it was like back in the day out here.

- We're walking through the woods.

The history is evident.

What it means to him and his family is evident.

It's something that most people, when they come to Florida-- most people that live in Florida-- have never gotten to see something like this.

[birds warbling] [camera shutter clicking] Oh, my gosh.

That's amazing.

So it's really special place.

- We've looked at maps of this area for a while.

And it's changed names over the years.

And one of the names it had, like in the late 1800s, was Mount Serena.

And we think that that hill over there was probably the mound.

And the canoes that we found were probably tied to that.

- So you found--you found Native American canoes here?

- Yes, sir.

We found two canoes.

One of them was donated to the University of Florida.

They took us to the facility where they had all of them.

- Wow.

- They just thought ours was-- they said it was the family truckster model and probably sat about four people and just a family that would have used it.

- That's incredible.

- It really is.

- There is some real history here.

- Oh, yeah, I mean, this is-- like, this dock is where my parents got married.

- This dock is?

- Yes, sir.

And then, so they got married right here, learned to swim right here, caught my first fish.

- This is a place of no compare.

It is really, really amazing.

- The connection with the land, this is where it happens.

- It's important.

When somebody sees one of your videos or one of your photos or one of your drawings, it captures the essence of the place, and then maybe they appreciate it a little bit more, and maybe, I don't know, they wanna get out there, right?

- I feel like the mission of Old Florida Vibes is-- I think my wife says it best-- that if you've never seen a whale, you don't know to protect the whales or even care about them.

And so to share some of this lesser seen bits of Florida means a lot to me, and I'm just glad to be able to share that.

- It's not a given that somebody will give these places a voice.

- Hopefully, through my art form, I can inspire to care about what we're doing to the land and maybe how we can preserve it a little bit better.

That's what it's all about.

[twangy country music] - There's a simple idea being used in the Arizona desert that can create electricity and save water at the same time.

Brad Hicks shows you how these project pioneers are drawing on the past for their inspiration.

- With the flip of a switch, a new source started sending power to the grid.

This stretch of solar panels south of Phoenix may not seem special, but what's under this canopy could impact how Western communities adapt to warming temperatures and drier weather.

- We're meeting the moment here.

- The innovators are Indigenous, the Gila River Indian community.

They've built this canopy of solar panels over an irrigation canal.

- This has never been done in North America before, never been done in the Western hemisphere.

So this could be a new paradigm for irrigation in the Western United States.

- The panels produce power.

But equally important, they prevent evaporation, a huge problem here in the desert.

The shade they create could also keep algae from growing in the canal, cutting maintenance costs.

And the cooling effect of the water under the panels should make them more efficient.

- For the world to see that a tribal nation can do this, we're at the forefront of this.

We're at the cutting edge of finding ways to address climate change.

- Right now, just over a half mile of this canal is covered.

But when the 16-mile long canal is complete, it could supply half the energy needs of the entire community and save enormous amounts of water for irrigation.

- Community's vision is to establish the first and only in the world completely carbon-neutral irrigation district, meaning that whatever its power demand is, we will generate through renewable energy.

- The Indigenous people here are considered one of the most successful canal building cultures in human history, dating back 2,000 years.

By harnessing solar to save water, they are taking their canal building heritage to new heights.

- And this links so beautifully to our traditions.

And this moment becomes a movement.

We're gonna look back and just to see that this is a historic time in how we address and adapt to our changing environment.

♪ ♪ - Populations of greater sage grouse have been in decline for decades.

The sagebrush habitat they depend on is threatened by wildfire, invasive species, and human development.

Here's an update on some of the latest conservation efforts.

[birds warbling] - A lot has happened over the past 20-plus years regarding greater sage grouse-- increased development across its range, the bird itself shrinking in population, the habitat disappearing at a record rate.

- Yeah, we've lost over half of the former range of the greater sage grouse, right?

- We have, yep.

So we're really at a critical time for sage grouse.

- In 2010, the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the greater sage grouse warranted protections under the Endangered Species Act.

[apprehensive music] But if the bird were to be listed, it could have had dramatic impacts on the Western states' economy, from blanket federal restrictions on energy development, grazing, and many other activities in Sage Country.

So the majority of stakeholders felt that an alternative approach was needed to allow local input in decision making that is more flexible and will ultimately be more beneficial to the birds and to people.

What followed was an extraordinary and historic conservation planning effort by the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S.

Forest Service, and 11 Western states to upgrade their land management plans to ensure that threats to sage grouse and their habitat were being addressed.

Conservation organizations, industry, and other federal agencies and private landowners played a key role at this critical moment in time.

And these efforts paid off.

- Today, I'm proud to mark a milestone for conservation in America.

- On September 22, 2015, then Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the greater sage grouse did not warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act.

All the federal and state agencies had to do was implement those new conservation plans.

- And then, change of administration, we worked the next four years.

And those plans were not implemented.

- Since the 2015 decision not to list sage grouse, both Democratic and Republican administrations have made changes to federal agency conservation plans for the species.

Federal plans under the Obama and Biden administrations protected roughly 1/3 of the very best remaining sage grouse habitat by removing all surface disturbance caused by mining, energy extraction, and other sources.

In contrast, both the first and second Trump administrations weakened the plans by removing those same protections.

All the while, surveys indicate that sage grouse populations continue to decline at a rate of nearly 3% each year.

It remains uncertain if sage grouse can continue to thrive and remain off the Endangered Species List.

♪ ♪ We stay out West, where about 40 million people have ties to the Colorado River and its watershed.

Some depend on it for drinking water.

Others delight in it for recreation.

Dave Showalter shares his love for this river through his photographs.

[serene music] - I've been a photographer for 30-plus years.

And in late 2015, I heard an expert who should have known better say the Colorado River is dying.

And that really tweaked me in a way where I thought, you know what?

I have something to say about that.

I'm Dave Showalter.

I've been a photographer for 30-plus years.

You know, from hearing people say the river is dying and seeing all these pictures of white bathtub rings around reservoirs, a lot of that discussion is about what I call the plumbing system, where there's lots of dams and diversions.

If you live in the Denver metro area, about 50% or 60% of your water comes from right here.

And it's important to understand the whole dynamic of the watershed, where there's so many straws in the river pulling water.

That's a part of the story.

But all of these rivers have to flow to reach those downstream users.

And as these rivers flow, there is life.

And I felt nobody's gonna care unless we take them to the river.

Unless they learn where their water comes from and start to develop that line of thinking around, what's my place in this watershed as 1 of 40 million people?

If we're telling stories through people who are doing great work, then there's a lot of inspiration in that, right?

And Kirk is a community builder.

- My name's Kirk Klancke.

I'm the president of the Colorado River Headwaters chapter of Trout Unlimited.

- Kirk did an amazing thing over time where he developed a relationship with Denver Water, where they didn't used to really have good, productive conversations.

They built this learning-by-doing project and came together to restore a section of the Fraser River, which is this area right here, restore the willows.

You can see the willows are burgeoning.

The yellow warblers are singing their heads off in the willows.

You know, that's that idea that if you just give rivers a nudge, the river knows what to do.

- I think real conservation starts with a conversation, which leads to collaboration.

When both parties mutually agree on working together, you get so much done.

♪ ♪ - I love the yellow warbler.

I love them for their beauty and also for their story, just how they use the habitats to link big chunks of North America.

We're just upstream from Adam's Falls here.

This is a great place for American dippers.

They're our only aquatic songbird, and they'll eat the same stuff that trout do.

They've been called a trout with feathers.

And they really like turbulent waters.

All of this is snowmelt from the top of the Rocky Mountains off the Continental Divide.

There is hope in the Colorado River.

And there's hope in that there's 40 million of us who are still attached to this river as part of a watershed community.

Go to the river.

Go to the river and learn where your water comes from.

If we just start speaking for the river and we do that as a community, we start to change the culture and the conversation and the narrative.

And that's what the river needs right now.

And we'll know what to do.

We'll be able to address these things.

And we'll find solutions.

And I just want people to leave with the idea that, yeah, there's an abundance of hope for the Colorado River.

[twangy country music] - Now to some climate change concerns coming from an unlikely place.

Forests usually absorb carbon, but in some places, they may actually be part of the problem.

In Colorado, Brad Hicks explains this surprising discovery.

- America's forests-- lush, green, and filled with fresh air.

More than 200 billion trees absorbing carbon dioxide and giving us oxygen.

When they soak up that carbon, they store it.

- If you hold a piece of dry wood, half of that weight is carbon.

- All that carbon locked up in the trees is why forests are often called carbon sinks.

They store a lot of carbon.

- U.S.

forests offset about 13% or so of the national greenhouse gas emissions.

- But by measuring plots of trees over time, Tony Vorster came across a disturbing discovery in Colorado.

- We found that in the past two decades or so that our forests--that Colorado's forests have emitted more carbon than they've captured.

- Colorado is not alone.

The forests in at least eight states have been net carbon emitters in recent years.

California's 2020 fire season alone wiped out 18 years of greenhouse gas reductions in the state.

The problem goes back a century when we started suppressing forest fires.

- By suppressing those fires, we have what we call overstocked conditions, maybe unnaturally dense conditions across the landscape.

And this is a West-wide issue.

- At the same time, we're coming into a period of climate change with more drought.

And that can lead to more bark beetle outbreaks and fires.

- Which means more decaying or burning wood in the forests, and that emits carbon, too much for the healthy trees to offset with the carbon they absorb.

And the outlook is forest emissions will increase.

- Weather change and climate, I think when we think about the future, we're not going into a world of less fire.

- I think that's where the carbon sink thing gets alarming because maybe it's not gonna save us.

So we shouldn't be looking to our forests to bail us out of climate change.

I think that's a big takeaway from this.

♪ ♪ - Now a look at some stories coming up in our next show.

- Fish ponds are all the rage.

- In Hawaii, a renaissance of fish ponds, this ancient form of aquaculture is sustainable and successful.

- That's our show and thanks for watching.

And check out our website, environmentnewstrust.com.

And you can always watch us on PBS Passport.

We'll see you next time.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪