Documentary Review: In new Netflix series, Barack Obama exhorts viewers to “vote like the planet depends on it” — because it does

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma has jour­neyed far in life, as well as on land and water.

He trav­els well.

The path to his pres­i­den­cy fea­tured a ring­ing speech at the Bran­den­burg Gate in Berlin, crowds show­ing up on a vis­it to his father’s fam­i­ly in Kenya, and a three-point shot that swished into a bas­ket net before cheer­ing Amer­i­can troops in Afghanistan.

Oba­ma has now embarked on a jour­ney through the nat­ur­al won­ders of our shared birthright.

The 44th pres­i­dent is tak­ing view­ers on a visu­al, edu­ca­tion­al tour of great nation­al parks, as the first pro­duc­tion in his deal with Netflix.

The five-part series fea­tures parks in Kenya and Indone­sia, as if to mock years of attacks on Obama’s ori­gins and child­hood from wacko birds of the right.

Oba­ma strolls bare­foot on beach­es, but his main con­tri­bu­tion is his gift of the spo­ken word.

Birds are a big part of the series, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it pic­tures the Mon­terey Bay Nation­al Marine Sanc­tu­ary along the cen­tral coast of Cal­i­for­nia. So are hip­pos ven­tur­ing into the surf off the west coast of Africa, orang­utans in the jun­gles of Bor­neo, killer whales attack­ing a gray whale calf, and pumas hunt­ing against a back­drop of Chile’s Tor­res de Paine Nation­al Park in the peaks of Patagonia.

The five-part Net­flix series is instruc­tion­al. Black rhi­nos are not Repub­li­cans in Name Only, but a species reduced in the 1970s and 1980s by poach­ers to the point where just 10 were left in Kenya’s Tsa­vo Nation­al Park.

The pop­u­la­tion has been brought back to one hun­dred, a half-dozen of whom are filmed at night at a water­ing hole.

Ele­phants’ sense of smell directs where they can dig for water in a dried-up riv­er bed. They are the boss of Africa’s steppes, with even lions show­ing respect.

Ele­phant seals sim­i­lar­ly rule ocean beach­es, with grunt­ing con­fronta­tions of dom­i­nant males. Water buf­fa­lo, in tem­pera­ment, sur­pass the ornery hos­til­i­ty of Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz.

The nar­ra­tors of tele­vi­sion nature series tend to speak with a hushed solem­ni­ty of Pas­sion Gospel read­ing or announc­ing the Mas­ters golf tour­na­ment. Not so Oba­ma. The man’s wry wit infus­es his commentary.

Hip­pos ven­tur­ing into the surf are “hang­ing ten.” A bug-infect­ed sloth in the jun­gle is a “phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal fac­to­ry” of ingre­di­ents for dis­ease-cur­ing medications.

The series deliv­ers, but does not dwell on, threats to the life of nat­ur­al sys­tems. Oba­ma keeps its mes­sage direct and sim­ple. “Vote like the plan­et depends on it,” he says. “Will we allow some­thing so pre­cious to dis­ap­pear for­ev­er?” he asks.

We’ve wit­nessed debates, in the North­west, about the size of parks and wilder­ness areas. The tim­ber, min­ing and petro­le­um indus­tries have read­i­ly agreed to pro­tect every glac­i­er out there. They balk at rain for­est val­leys or coastal plains that are calv­ing grounds for Arc­tic caribou.

The Oba­ma series pic­tures the dan­gers sur­round­ing parks, from pop­u­la­tion incur­sion to bull­doz­ing Borneo’s jun­gles to plant life­less palm oil plan­ta­tions. Again, how­ev­er, the touch is light and sen­si­ble. “The larg­er the park, the more ani­mals will call it home,” Oba­ma tells viewers.

The 44th pres­i­dent walked his talk in office.

Just before leav­ing office, Oba­ma des­ig­nat­ed a 1.3‑million- acre Bears Ears Nation­al Mon­u­ment to pro­tect peaks, mesas and native pet­ro­glyphs in South­ern Utah. Trump slashed it to 213,000 acres, but the mon­u­ment has been restored by Pres­i­dent Biden. Oba­ma expand­ed a marine sanc­tu­ary off Mid­way Island in the Pacif­ic, and cre­at­ed the first such sanc­tu­ary in the Atlantic.

The nation­al park series is a jour­ney through nat­ur­al won­ders of our shared birthright. Oba­ma often returns to a theme: The inter­ests of humankind are served by pro­tect­ing and nur­tur­ing these lands (and waters).

“They are our life sup­port,” Oba­ma argues, talk­ing of ben­e­fits that go far beyond boost­ing eco-tourism.

Seem­ing­ly not a week goes by with­out an alarm­ing report on buildup of car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere, the expand­ing fire sea­son in our drought-strick­en West, or release of methane from melt­ing permafrost.

Oba­ma acknowl­edges the mul­ti­ple mount­ing dan­gers, but the man still believes in a word cen­tral to his 2008 cam­paign: Hope moves him.

“As long as we make the right choic­es, we can heal it, too,” he concludes.

But the Net­flix series also under­scores a mes­sage from Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., often quot­ed by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma: the urgency of now.