TV

Barack Obama treks the globe as a suave tour guide in Our Great National Parks docuseries

44 meets "surfing hippos," hungry crocs, and a "sleepy sloth" with biological matter on its coat that might help fight cancer in the first trailer for Netflix's new five-part nature series.

By

Joey Nolfi

Published on March 15, 2022 10:19AM EDT

Former President Barack Obama tangoes with surfing hippos, hungry crocs, and sleepy sloths that could hold the key to fighting cancer in the first trailer for Netflix's new nature docuseries Our Great National Parks.

The nation's 44th president narrates and executive-produces the series, which also sees him traveling the world in search of "species found nowhere else on earth" but in the remote locations he visits across the five-episode project. He calls the program a "celebration of our planet's greatest national parks and wilderness" that hold unusual creatures with extraordinary behaviors.

Barack Obama travels the world in 'Our Great National Parks' series on Netflix. Netflix

"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 — who established and expanded protections for 550 million acres of American public lands and water — says in the clip.

He later focuses on a sloth whose coat contains an entire mini biological system within it, which Obama says could help "fight cancer, malaria, and anti-resistant superbugs," and that scientist could be able to "save us all" with the help of the tree-dwelling mammal.

Across the show, Obama travels to Monterey Bay, Kenya's Tsavo National Park, the rainforests of Indonesia's Gunung Leuser National Park, the Chilean Patagonia, and more.

Our Great National Parks — made in collaboration with Wild Space, Higher Ground Productions, and Freeborne Media — premieres all five of its 60-minute episodes April 13 on Netflix. Watch the first trailer above.