As Florida’s lands and wildlife face urgent environmental threats from climate change, human-caused pollution, urban expansion and invasive species, a new show highlights efforts to save the wild beauty and biodiversity of the Sunshine State.

“Wildlife Nation: Expedition Florida” is the latest season of the television series hosted by conservationist and biologist Jeff Corwin. Known for his previous work on ABC’s “Ocean Mysteries,” Disney Channel’s “Going Wild” and “The Jeff Corwin Experience” on Animal Planet, the Florida-based episodes add to his latest show that debuted in 2021.

In assembling eight original episodes that will air on ABC stations (Saturday mornings beginning on Jan. 6), Corwin partnered with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida to showcase time-sensitive environmental stewardship efforts.

“Florida is biologically and ecologically one of North America’s most important wild communities. Florida is the poster child for many of the challenges we face,” Corwin said. “On the other side, Florida is a place of such promise. I wanted to tell the stories of people from the Panhandle to the Florida Keys, from the sawgrass to the seagrass, whose life’s passion and commitment is to protect the wild legacy of Florida for the next generation.”

The South Florida-based Miccosukee Tribe sponsored the show and has an executive producer credit.

“We’ve never had this type of involvement on our end or even having this kind of say in the production,” said William “Popeye” Osceola, the Miccosukee Tribe’s secretary, with Corwin adding: “The Miccosukee are our partners in story development, episodic approval and they’re integrated into every episode.”

A formidable fight

The Jan. 6 pilot episode opens with scenes of the Everglades, Florida’s 2,400-square-mile wetland habitat and “River of Grass.” The formidable foe central to this segment is one familiar to many Floridians: the invasive Burmese python.

While there’s no accurate tally of these invasive snakes, biologists estimate that hundreds of thousands of nonnative individuals could be roaming the Everglades. The apex predators have caused the population of small mammals such as deer, raccoons and possums to decline by 90 percent.

“When I think back to the ancestors and the stories I heard from my elders, it seemed to be a simpler life,” said Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee activist and educator, in the pilot episode. “Wildlife was abundant. They didn’t have to worry about finding food. They didn’t have to worry about getting fish. You could take your water right out of the Everglades to drink, cook with or wash your clothes.”

The historical success and natural harmony of the tribe’s land and waters are now threatened by polluted waters, climate change, urban expansion and invasive species.

In the first episode, Corwin follows biologists from the Miccosukee Tribe’s fish and wildlife department, who use a specially trained dog to track and capture a python. Later in the show, he joins Betty Osceola in releasing native possums, raccoons, a hawk and an owl as part of an effort to begin restoring the Everglades’ small mammal population.

For the next generation of the Miccosukee Tribe’s leadership, it’s a matter of using Indigenous heritage and science to help protect and restore their home.

“Our tribe’s constitution states in the preamble that part of our duty is to conserve the land and the resources,” Popeye said. “We need to know where we came from so we know where we’re going. We use the culture to help us guide our way forward to make sure we’re honoring what our ancestors have been trying to fight for.”

A Central Florida connection

While the first four episodes are based in South Florida, centering on alligators, fish populations, apple snails and birds, Corwin and his production team visited several Central Florida destinations.

He checked off a “bucket-list item” by studying and seeing up-close the massive Suwannee alligator snapping turtle on the Santa Fe River. Corwin also visited manatees in Crystal River and ventured out to Silver Springs, where he teamed up with the Florida Springs Institute to study the health of freshwater turtles.

“Turtles are a fantastic indicator species. We have one of the highest turtle diversities in the entire world,” said Bill Hawthorne, a biologist with the Florida Springs Institute. “If we track these turtle populations over time and one of them is decreasing, it tells a lot about the ecosystem.”

Diving down into the headsprings as glass-bottomed boats cruised by, Corwin and Hawthorne brought up several species of cooters, loggerhead musks and one feisty softshell turtle, which threatened Corwin’s fingers with its powerful bite and long neck (but no fingers, or turtles, were ultimately harmed).

As they gathered these ancient reptiles to take their measurements and check for electronic tags, a manatee swam nearby. In sharing the stories from around Central Florida and South Florida, Corwin hopes to drive home the point that it’s all connected.

“In wild Florida, nothing happens in a vacuum. Habitat loss, climate change, sea-level rise, urban sprawl and expansion individually have an impact, but they conspire and feed into each other,” Corwin said. “To me, that’s the big story here. They all intersect and feed into having a more extreme impact on the future of wildlife in Florida.”

Leaving it better for the future

While Corwin realizes that many viewers won’t have the chance to put a collar on a hyena or work with endangered kiwis in New Zealand, he hopes everyone can relate to Florida somehow.

“Just about everybody, at some point, is going to go to Florida. It’s accessible at every level of economics, and it’s a gateway opportunity to connect with nature,” Corwin said. “We can’t protect what we do not love. You’ll never love it if you don’t get that introduction. What every episode does is it makes an introduction to something spectacular about the wild Florida spectacle.”

For Popeye and his fellow Miccosukee Tribe members, this show serves as an opportunity to share Indigenous perspectives and introduce a sense of environmental responsibility for future generations.

“The Indigenous perspective can’t be discounted. It’s going to be lost if we don’t take these efforts and time to highlight and preserve it,” he said. “We operate on the basis that we don’t own this land; we’re just borrowing it from the future. We have to leave it in a better state than when we found it.”

While it’s easy to feel distraught when considering the mounting environmental impact of these combined calamities, what Corwin hopes to instill is a message of hope.

“We find ourselves in a situation, with so many of these stories in Florida, that it’s now or never. We are the generation that will determine what tomorrow’s children will inherit with wild Florida,” he said. “If we don’t make radical, groundbreaking, revolutionary decisions today, there will be no wild Florida tomorrow. But we have the commitment, expertise and incredible, cutting-edge science that many people are doing today to ensure that wild Florida thrives for the next generation.”

“Wildlife Nation: Expedition Florida” airs weekends on ABC-owned and affiliated stations (times vary; check local listings) as part of the “Weekend Adventure” program block.