Running Wild: This isn't the first time President Barack Obama has appeared on camera to promote national parks. Photo / Delbert Shoopman, Getty Images
Running Wild: This isn't the first time President Barack Obama has appeared on camera to promote national parks. Photo / Delbert Shoopman, Getty Images
Is Obama the new Attenborough? Netflix thinks so.
Former US president Barack Obama is to be the face of a new Netflix documentary exploring the world's national parks - and the creatures which call them home.
'POTUS 44' will be presenting a five-part series titled Our Great National Parks thatwill "invite viewers to celebrate and discover the power of our planet's greatest national parks and wild spaces."
As the National Park Movement turns 150 with the anniversary of the founding of Yellowstone National Park, the former politician is going on a globetrotting tour of the world's 'national treasures'.
Barack Obama has appeared in the trailer for Netflix's newest nature documentary on National Parks. Photo / Supplied
The show will visit Kenya's Tsavo National Park, the rainforest orangutans of Indonesia's Gunung Leuser National Park, and Chilean Patagonia among others.
Although the politician did not venture as far as Fiordland, there is still scope for a second series, with over 4,000 designated conservation spaces worldwide. The first series is set to broadcast on April 14.
For a natural diplomat with a gravely voice and gravitas, it should be a walk in the park.
Wildlife documentaries are a difficult thing to do. Teaming up with veteran broadcaster David Attenborough Netflix has produced award winning wildlife programming, such as Our Planet and A Life on our Planet.
After 70 years documenting the natural world, has he found his successor?
This isn't Obama's first time in front of the camera. In 2015, while still US President, he had his first foray into adventure filming on Bear Grylls survival program Running Wild.
Our Great National Parks is the natural next step, and it promises great things.
In a teaser released this week the former president says he will visit "A fish that can walk. Surfing hippos that want to catch the waves. Species found nowhere else on earth."
The programming ties into the National Parks conservation movement which began in the US 150 years ago, when Yellowstone Park was set aside as a protected site of national significance.
Our Great National Parks will be presented by Barack Obama for Netflix. Photo / Supplied
"When humanity started to protect these wild places, we did not realise how important they would become. They're a haven for endangered species, and a hotbed for scientific research," says Obama.
During the program the crew visit not only the extraordinary animals and those tasked with protecting them, but also the researchers who are looking for new medicines and technologies which are hidden in the protected natural spaces.
"This is a journey through the natural wonders of our shared birthright," he says.
Produced in cooperation with Wild Space Productions and filmmaker James Honeyborne, a collaborator with Attenborough on the BBC's Blue Planet II.
The series will be part of a multi-year production deal which Michelle and Barack Obama signed with Netflix in 2018.
"Spanning five continents, the series brims with wonder, humour and optimism as each episode tells the story of a national park through the lives of its wildest residents — both big and exceptionally small — and explores our changing relationship with wilderness," reads the show notes.
