- In Florida, our wild places are largely hidden in plain sight.

I spent my entire life in the Florida woods and I can count the number of times I've seen a black bear on one hand.

And I've only seen a panther twice.

To know these animals are out there can help change the idea for why these places need to be saved.

Camera trapping's a technique I learned in Africa but brought home to help discover the hidden wilds of Florida.

And it takes a lot of patience and a lot of persistence.

Some of these ranches where I put out a camera, we have to keep it operating for one or two years to ever get that panther picture or to ever show that black bear in the pine forest.

So it's extremely frustrating at times, but when you get those pictures, when you get the first panther ever documented on a particular ranch, when you show that black bear, it's all worth it.

(light music) It's partly about the bear, but it's mostly about the land that that bear represents and to show that that bear is on a cattle ranch, on a state reserve that people don't necessarily know about.

These natural assets will not persevere the coming decades unless we make an investment in protecting them.

And the Florida Wildlife Corridor is what holds all that together.

(light music) The Florida Wildlife Corridor is a statewide network of public conservation lands and private working lands that work together to provide connected greenspace for water, wildlife and people.

To really explore what is the Florida Wildlife Corridor and how can we save it, we set off on some expeditions.

And the idea was to travel the way a bear or a panther could still travel through the state of Florida.

(light music) We as Floridians have a unique opportunity to build on an incredible legacy of conservation.

27% of Florida is public land, but the thing is that's not enough.

We've done a tremendous job over the past 50 years in setting the pace for conservation in Florida.

And now we need to finish that journey because we're fighting a tremendous onslaught of development, 100,000 acres a year lost to housing and to roads and to shopping malls.

(light music) By 2070, if development continues at the same pace, we're projected to lose 5 million acres of rural and natural land in the state of Florida.

And that's nearly all the missing links in the Florida Wildlife Corridor.

If we don't protect the Corridor now, most of our state parks and national parks are gonna be islands surrounded by development.

And that's a world I want my kids to inherit.

(light music) - The river brings people together like nothing else.

It really does just open up opportunities and breaks down barriers I think.

And that's so important that we do bring people together.

We need to reach out and open our hearts and our lands to other people so they really understand what we're doing and what we're bringing to the table.

I tell people all the time that I think that this is truly where we were meant to be.

I feel a huge sense of responsibility to my family to help sustain this property and keep it productive and in the family, and also just for what it means to the public in general.

(light music) People have this vision of what a logger is and it's not what I think of myself.

We cultivate our product and then we harvest it and we replant it.

One of the tools we have is conservation easements.

Conservation easements are a legacy tool because it means that as a landowner, you have put restrictions on that land that last forever.

Wind Bend will never be a strip mall, it will never be a housing development.

You give up your development rights and it helps the landowner because they receive payment for those rights that they give up.

Critters don't know boundaries, they don't know property lines.

They just go where they have to go.

So it's important that we have these corridors so that these critters that are so important to us are able to move at their own natural pace.

Private lands and agriculture are what provide those habitats that are so vital.

- So what I'm trying to do is get hair off the bears.

It's really all I need.

And we just try to make an area just big enough so they have to actually get into it, instead of just reaching in to get the bait.

And we put some bait in the middle.

You can see where they've been digging.

- I've lived here all my life.

I've never seen a bear in the wild in Florida.

- Well, it seems like they're getting more over in this part of the state.

That's why we're doing this project.

We don't have any idea how many there are or if we actually have a population or just a few that move through.

What the state would like to do with these separated populations is to get them connected again.

And it might years down the road or decades away, but ideally these subpopulations will merge and then we won't be able to genetically tell them apart anymore.

That's what we would like.

(light music) - [Lynetta] I wanna see.

- It's not very long, but see it's black and there's four or five of them.

And it's really thinner than you think and it's kind of wavy, but it's pretty short undetectable, but since we don't know for sure, I collect it.

And if we're not really sure, the genetics lab can tell.

(light music) - It's incredible how compatible Florida agriculture and wildlife are, even in the logging woods.

I think we enhance our wildlife population more than we do to destroy it.

Agriculture by and large is good for wildlife.

(light music) We're seeing more and more conversion we call it from timber to development.

That's concerning, but most of the neighbors that we have are just as determined as we are to not develop.

I've heard of a phrase that the last crop that will grow on these lands is houses.

That's not a good option.

(light music) - [Gretchen] I am a born and raised Kansan that recently relocated to Florida two years ago.

I moved here with my brother and we acquired a clam farm here in Cedar Key.

- You live to work or you work to live.

So if there's an opportunity to do something cool or enjoy it a little bit more, then we're gonna take it.

(light music) - Sometimes this window rolls down, sometimes it doesn't.

(Gretchen laughs) Oh, it's gonna be a good day!

(Gretchen laughs) (light music) It's always humbling in the morning when we're boating out to our clam farm with our coffees and we're seeing beautiful sunrise and all of God's creation around us.

It kind of makes you feel small and you realize just how much bigger this world is and how much we have to take care of.

(light music) It was a big decision to move to Florida and to start clam farming.

We were leaving everything behind to move here.

(light music) Cedar Key is special in the fact that we have two freshwater sources north and south of where we're located.

So we have got the Suwannee that's north and the Waccasassa that is south.

And that freshwater that flows into the Gulf creates a perfect environment for the clams to thrive.

(light music) What happens inland directly correlates to the health of our product.

And so if development is happening and they are pumping water from our freshwater sources, we don't get to be safe here and happy in little Cedar Key.

It's so much bigger than that.

(light music) This is our future.

We made this jump two years ago not thinking about five minutes from now, but down the road what would support our families.

- Yeah, we wanna put roots down here.

This is too special of a place to not wanna be in.

Water is life and if you mess with it, if you're not a good steward to it, it'll vanish and then what you're left with is not a whole lot.

- We can see why people wanna come to Florida.

It's the best place on earth.

So I can't be upset with people wanting to be here, but I think we need to do it differently.

(light music) As young farmers, we want to be implementing practices that are sustainable so that our kids and grandkids are able to also be farmers and produce food and help save the planet.

And so we feel a great responsibility to be good stewards of what we've been given.

(light music) (light music) - I was taught by my mother to be a strong human being, to know who I am in my language of my people.

That's who I am, this indigenous, Native American, American Indian.

As an indigenous person growing up with the Miccosukee people, we're always taught to always think about the future generations.

I'm just being what the Miccosukee people raise our people to be, good stewards of the environment and of our people.

Over the years, we've noticed a decline in the wildlife populations because of the disconnection of the landscapes.

All this disconnection causes a lot of human and animal conflict.

And if we want to protect the bear, if we want to protect the panther, they need to have wide open spaces to roam.

They need to have that connection.

And I have to have a place to exist because I'm a natural being in a natural world.

I'm a two-legged animal.

As a way to continue teaching about the Everglades and getting the outside world to care about the homeland that I live in, my late husband and I started an airboat company to really educate about the landscape.

I need that large landscape of the Greater Everglades system.

And so if I need that big home range, the animals need that same environment.

People wonder, why do you go out by yourself or take people out, there's nothing out there.

I'm like, they see nothing and I see everything 'cause what's important about life is here.

(light music) When you can access areas that you couldn't by foot and you're the only one out in nature, it's a very humbling experience.

And when you're able to share that with tourists from other parts of the world, they seem to leave with a different perspective of the natural world around them.

(light music) Being this far south, everything that happens north of us is a concern because eventually it'll come and impact us.

So when you're looking at the overall ecosystem of the Greater Everglades, I would rather see a farmer own a piece of land because when we quits farming, the land can eventually reclaim itself.

But if you get rid of that farmer and you put a shopping mall in there, then you've lost that natural element to that environment.

(light music) Morning, ladies, welcome to Buffalo Tiger Airboat Tours.

How are you doing this morning?

- [Ladies] Very good.

- Be careful while you're boarding the boat.

Don't want anybody slip and fall.

(light music) Tourism brings in a lot of money from the outside world to Florida.

And you have to have that healthy environment for tourists to wanna come back to enjoy those experiences.

(light music) - The Everglades is the Everglades.

There's no other place like it on the planet.

And the situation that it creates for all of those critical game fish species that people come to Florida from all over the planet to experience, they grow up in Everglades National Park and the Everglades plays a huge role in their life cycle.

And it's all because of that freshwater that comes out of the Everglades.

I've been coming out here since I was younger than Marley.

I was probably five or six when I first came to the Park.

When I was introduced to this down here, it just completely blew my world to pieces because you go from Miami where there's concrete everywhere and very little green coverage.

You come out here and there's nothing but green and water and open space.

Now I get to show it to new people every day and then my kids and also my grandkids one day.

And hopefully it's in a better state then than it is now.

(light music) It will be 'cause we're gonna make it so.

(light music) Certainly can see it in my daughters, that love for the outdoors, that love for the Everglades and the fish that are in front of them.

(light music) Every little thing that happens north of us affects the Bay immediately.

And in turn, it effects our fishery, it effects our economy, it effects our way of life.

And you're gonna cast down this slick here, okay.

- Okay.

- [Benny] I think it's equally as important to protect the remaining wild places in the state of Florida with everything we have.

- Oh, are you kidding me?

- Reel, Marley.

Reel it back all the way, Marley, fast.

Just keep control of him right there.

(light music) That, that's where you got the grip.

- Okay, your other hand under the belly.

- Over here?

- Yep.

- Okay.

- Then you put him down in the water.

There you go.

Now, when you're ready, you're just gonna roll the fish that way.

(light music) Good job, give me five.

Good job.

Tourism is our number one commodity in the state of Florida, no doubt.

As a fishing guide, I recognize that water is our number one issue and that we have to take care of our water and otherwise no one goes fishing.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of urban development, the amount of greenspace and our ability to have clean water in the state of Florida.

And we are already past the tipping points.

We can't lose a single blade of grass at this point.

(light music) (light music) - My day starts about 4 o'clock in the morning, but I think all the time when I'm on my way to work that I drive through the ranch and I get to watch our God's creation wake up.

I get to watch the birds and the creatures and the wildlife.

(light music) Look at that.

That was at our home ranch and there's a lake behind it.

I love sunrises and sunsets.

That's my favorite time.

Most people miss that kind of stuff and that's what life's about is seeing God's beauty, you know.

All right, so we're gonna flank out and make a circle and start bringing these cattle down that wing right there.

(light music) I'm a sixth generation Florida rancher.

Our family moved down here in 1850, middle of 1850, brought their cattle with them and we have the seventh and eighth generation living on the ranch.

I don't think we run them off.

And they love the cattle business.

(light music) I couldn't imagine doing anything else other than getting on a horse every day and working cattle.

(light music) My dad saw the change.

He saw that people will move here and we couldn't stop them.

He'd always say, "You know, people don't come here "to see a subdivision.

"They come here to see our scenic landscape."

Florida's got such unique landscape and you fall in love with it when you're raised with it.

Ranch land gives the state so many benefits, the greenspace and the clean air they're providing, the recharge area, the home for the endangered species.

(light music) Most of your wildlife need bigger areas to live on.

So you gotta have that continuous area for them to roam.

You take one section out of it and it stops them from traveling.

If we was surrounded on all four sides of development, it would be hard to ranch.

(light music) The ranching business is not the most profitable business there is.

So there's other things you gotta learn how to do and keep your land intact.

(light music) You will find if you would keep your ranch, do a conservation easement, you'll find a way to make a living with it.

(light music) Every rancher I know that went ahead and sold their land to a developer, there's not one of them that didn't come back and say, "I wish I wouldn't have done that."

Once we lose the Florida Wildlife Corridor, we've lost it all.

(light music) (light music) - The biggest thing that the Florida Wildlife Corridor expeditions taught me is that everything is connected.

The land, the wildlife, the people, it all depends on this connected network of green space that supports all life here.

Once we lose these wild places, they're gone forever.

But we have the benefit of foresight to see now the way things are going and to steer that course.

And if we do it right and if we make those choices now, we can still save this balance that can be an example for the rest of the world.

Come on, Eldridge.

Eldridge, let's see if we can find this camera trap.

Right there.

(light music) Oh, is that a deer?

(light music) - A deer.

(light music) - When I started out trying to tell these stories, I was doing it for the bears and the panthers.

And now I realize I'm doing it for my kids.

(light music) 30 years from now, my greatest hope is that my kids can travel a wildlife corridor that's still here running through the heart of Florida.

(light music) - You know you always have to have hope because the caring of the environment goes from generation to generation and we're only borrowing this point in time.

And it goes back to our people.

We were always taught as long as there's one, there will always be a tomorrow.

(light music) - I want my grandkids to say you was a good granddad.

I want them to say that he had vision and that he did take good care of the land and protected it and that he saved it where we could go ahead and do the same thing with our grandchildren one day.

- We have the ability in the state of Florida right now for not only this to be our legacy, what we did in our lifetime was save these wild places and turn Florida around, but we can be the model for the rest of the planet.

(light music) - When we come together to save this Florida Wildlife Corridor, we'll be saving these lands for our children, but also setting up a global example of what's possible for people and nature together.

(light music) And that's something worth fighting for.

(light music) (light music)