- Just ahead on "This American Land"... - We're making a lot of progress here.

We've increased survivorship tenfold.

- Protecting endangered species, like this desert tortoise, is a top priority on this marine base.

[gunfire] We'll fill you in on a military mission that usually goes under the radar.

- I mean, people spend their whole year thinking about that one week they're here at the beach.

- The care and feeding of North Carolina's beaches.

They're the lifeblood of the state's tourism but threatened by storms and sea level rise.

- If an engineered beach for us, at this point in time, is strong, then the future looks even more prosperous.

- We'll show you the strategy one community uses to keep its coastline healthy and well-nourished.

- You see a whole lot of things when you run a hundred miles.

[laughs] - These trails highlight some sights that are strikingly beautiful, others, terribly disappointing.

- So we do end up cleaning up a lot of other people's messes.

Lots of plastic bottles, cans, shotgun shells, cardboard boxes.

- Meet some of the trailblazers coming to the rescue of our public lands.

- Fall!

all: Hoorah!

- Now that we've got your attention, we're all packed up and ready to go.

- We use these trails.

We'll take care of them.

- Surf's up, and we're storming ahead with some innovative ways to protect our precious resources.

"This American Land" starts now.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪ - Hello, and welcome to "This American Land."

I'm your host, Ed Arnett.

And in all of our shows, we'll share some terrific stories about America's natural resources.

Today, we'll show you some unexpected partnerships that have been created to protect the treasures in our landscapes and waters and for our wildlife.

For more than six decades, the military has had a mission most folks don't know about-- a commitment to protecting the country's natural resources at its facilities.

Military installations often have a higher density of threatened and endangered species than other federally owned lands.

And in the California desert, the marines are making a difference for conservation.

Brad Hicks discovered an unexpected dimension to their mission to protect threatened and endangered species while training for combat.

- Dawn on the high desert, a marine corps platoon... - One team up here on tabletop.

- Yep.

- Makes a plan of attack.

- And how many fireteams they have?

- Their mission today: take three enemy targets.

- Victory--trench two.

- This is 29 Palms, the marine corps combat center in California.

[gunfire] [shouting] [dramatic music] Evaluators in orange train them to improvise, adapt, and overcome.

But there is one obstacle that can stop these maneuvering marines in their tracks.

- Gopherus agassizzii.

- The desert tortoise.

[quirky music] ♪ ♪ The Mojave Desert tortoise has been marching around Earth for 30 million years.

Southern Nevada and Southeastern California are its current stomping grounds.

But there aren't as many as there used to be.

This lumbering reptile is listed as "threatened" under The Endangered Species Act.

♪ ♪ - The population have been declining on the order of 50% every ten years.

- And 29 Palms is tortoise country.

Brian Henen's job is to keep it that way.

- How do we conserve the species while also allowing the marines to train?

- The answer is under this net.

The combat center at 29 Palms covers more than 1,100 square miles-- the size of Rhode Island.

Down a long, washboard road, past signs that say "restricted," miles into the middle of nowhere, you'll come to TRACRS, the Tortoise Research and Captive Rearing Site.

How does it feel being in charge of tiny tortoises?

The facility is run by the marines and falls under the responsibility of Colonel Matt Bain.

- The primary purpose is so we can train marines here.

- Because no matter how crucial the military mission, it's not exempt from the requirements of The Endangered Species Act.

- So we want to keep that species thriving.

That's kind of the self-interest side of it.

The other side of it is stewardship, what marines do.

We protect America.

We protect America's resources for future posterity.

- Even without... [gunfire] It's a dangerous and difficult world for the desert tortoise-- badgers, kitfoxes, even fire ants.

- I love desert tortoises.

I'm a reptile guy myself.

[inquisitive music] - UCLA biologist Ken Nagy has been researching reptiles his entire life.

He knows as well and anyone the threats the tortoises face and why their numbers are dwindling.

- These days, the raven is the major predator, thanks mainly to mankind's continued invasion of the desert and particularly making drinking water available.

There are surveys of raven nests finding over a hundred dead baby tortoises, which are called walking ravioli, by the way, because their shells are so soft and squishy.

- Which brings us back to TRACRS and those nets covering four acres of tortoise pens at 29 Palms.

- The installation, 17 years ago, decided that they wanted to consider something like this as a means to help bolster some of the populations within an installation and to do something for conservation of the tortoise.

♪ ♪ - They call it head-starting, bringing in females from on base that are ready to lay eggs, then protecting the hatchlings until they're big enough and their shells are hard enough that they have a fighting chance.

- There's extremely high mortality in those first few years.

- For every 100 eggs laid in the wild, only three will reach reproductive age in their teens, so it's really difficult for the declining population to turn the trend on its own.

Here, several hundred youngsters have protection from predators, even irrigation to make sure they're well-hydrated and have plenty of plants to eat.

- We've increased survivorship tenfold.

- This will be their home until they're about nine years old and the size of a softball.

So far, there have been three releases of the head start program tortoises into the wild-- 2015, '17, and '19.

But it's been a while.

There's a problem, and it's not with the tortoises.

It's with something they can't control.

[tense music] ♪ ♪ The Western drought.

- We can't release these expensive animals into a habitat that has no food or water for them.

If we get some rain at the right time of year and it causes a generation of wildflowers once again, then we release.

- And the dry conditions are causing another concern, one that illustrates the interconnectedness of the ecosystem--coyotes.

- In dry years, their normal food-- jackrabbits, cottontails, rodents--they die back.

- So the coyotes have started eating some of the released head start tortoises instead.

- Which was unexpected because coyotes generally don't prefer reptiles, especially tortoises.

- The discovery underscores the complexity of conservation for the desert tortoise.

It's one thing to protect and release them, but it's not the full picture.

- The full picture is, do those offspring become fully functional members of the population?

[pensive music] - Tortoise biologist Scott Hillard is on a trek to find out.

Armed with a directional antenna, he holms in on transmitters attached to the tortoises at TRACRS before they're released into the restricted area.

- Each tortoise has a unique transmitter frequency.

- Interesting.

And how many of the tortoises out here have one of these radio transmitters?

- Well, out here, we've put about 100.

♪ ♪ And yep, there she is.

- Tucked away in her burrow, where desert tortoises spend most of their lives.

Scott logs her location, gives her a checkup, and finally, an ultrasound to see if she's ready to reproduce.

- Things aren't in here favor.

It's been a drought, and she's young.

- For tortoise CA20-5, motherhood will have to wait another season.

♪ ♪ The tortoise program at 29 Palms is the first step on a long road.

The next move for the marines is to take what they've learned at TRACRS and begin building viable tortoise populations off-base.

- Potentially in areas where's there's good habitat.

- Brian Croft with the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service is helping coordinate those efforts with the Department of Defense under the DOD's Recovery and Sustainment partnership.

One of the keys is finding sites that will remain viable for the tortoise if temperatures rise over the next century.

It really requires you working all together.

- Yeah, it's a big family effort in terms of coordinating with just lots of different and federal agencies, local jurisdictions, non-governmental organizations.

[bugle blaring] - For the marine corps, it will eventually mean more mission flexibility on base.

- Marines are generally shocked that a tortoise can interfere with marine corps training, right?

- Go!

Ten hut!

- In fact, every recruit receives the warning: see a tortoise, stop everything.

- Fall!

all: Hoorah!

- The ultimate goal is to get the tortoise to a point where it's delisted, no longer threatened, so when these little hatchlings are big enough to be marching around the desert, the marines won't have to stop in their tracks.

[indistinct chatter] [dynamic music] - From the California desert, we now go to the coast of North Carolina.

Humans have always chosen to live near the ocean whenever they could.

They're inspired by its beauty, the livelihood it provides, and also its mesmerizing power, but the climate crisis is putting a spotlight on some of the dangers of sea level rise and on more frequent and fierce tropical storms.

Some coastal residents are discovering that working with nature can provide simple and long-lasting answers.

Our story is from Michelle Latcher with science and sea.

[waves crashing] - There's never two years that are the same about our beach.

It builds up.

It drops down.

It gets ledges.

We've actually had it where the people are pushed all the way up against the sand dunes.

It's just an unpredictable thing.

- We really enjoy being on the waterfront and seeing how it changes-- how we lose sand, how we gain sand.

The bad part is, you know, when the hurricanes come, we're gonna be the ones that get the first hit.

- That's part of living on a beach.

- One thing people who live on the coast know is that the only constant is change.

[thunder rumbling] [waves crashing] - Waves and wind move sand around daily.

And when a storm comes through, dramatic changes to the shape of the coast can happen overnight.

- The power of Mother Nature and what she can do to months and years of investment and movement, and the power of the sea combined with the power of a storm is sheerly astonishing.

- And with the warming climate bringing rising seas and more severe storms, the dynamic beach becomes even more fragile and unpredictable.

- The sea level is rising at a rate that, you know, we can deal with.

We can say that pretty definitively.

We're dealing with it by... unearthing beaches on the marsh.

We're adding plants.

We could do sea walls.

We could do all sorts of things that we have, you know, been doing, and they've been, you know, working to a certain degree.

[indistinct chatter] - For a beach town like Emerald Isle, the toughest challenge is holding onto the beach that residents and tourists love.

The solution-- feeding the beach.

[epic music] ♪ ♪ - It's basically taking sand from outside the beach system and putting it on the beach.

- During beach nourishment, giant pumps siphon sand from offshore and discharge it onto the beach.

But it turns out you can't just dump any sand on the beach.

- I mean, sand is everything, but if you ask anybody what is sand, you'll get a thousand different answers.

Sand is a very scientific term.

It's any grain that's between 1/16th and 2 millimeters.

And that's our kind of bread and butter.

Now, if it's finer than, you know, sand, it has a very scientific term.

It's called mud.

If it's above sand, it's called gravel.

You want to match the native beach sand.

If you think about it, if you take a bucket of mud and throw it out, it's gonna ooze all over the place.

Well, you don't want the oozy stuff on the beach, and vice versa.

If you take a bucket of rocks or gravel, it's gonna be really steep.

- And once you find the right kind of sand, you can't just dump it and forget about it.

Beaches are sculpted.

- We don't just throw the sand on the beach, right?

We, you know, have to contour it.

You don't want the next little storm to come and take away a bunch of fine grain sand or mud that you put on the beach, right?

Hurricane Florence took away the insipient dunes, or as I like to call them, baby dunes, so our job was to put back those baby dunes and then also provide the flat part of the beach and underwater part of the beach.

So that point right there is right where the old vegetation meets the brand-new vegetation.

It looks kind of angular, just like out the photo now, but, like, in a year, the dune plants will start collecting the sand.

And you'll have this nice hummocky, almost wavy type of feel like you do in the native area.

And I'll tell you another thing too.

Mother Nature also-- it likes this outer bar here.

That's part of the beach system.

We know that we're gonna lose part of the towel space.

We're gonna lose that as it forms a new outer bar.

- Precise measurements before hurricane season allow town officials to know how much sand was lost in the storm and how much remains.

Beach nourishment begins when specific thresholds for sand loss are met.

- We went almost 30 years without having a major storm, if you will.

And then, all of a sudden, the, you know, '90s came-- Bertha and Fran, Bonnie in '98.

Then we had Dennis I and II.

It hit us twice.

And then we had Floyd.

So, you know, we saw-- with our eyeballs, we sort of saw what has happening, but we wanted to put, you know, numbers on it, to A, quantify it, and B, how are we gonna quote-unquote "fix it"?

So at that time, we started what we call a monitoring program.

So we survey the beach from the top of the dune underwater.

- Their rolling tripod is what they were using to measure the amount of sand, because the amount of sand that's out to ten feet deep, that matters too-- how much sand is just right here offshore.

That's called the engineered beach.

Now, we've got the numbers right here.

And as soon as a hurricane strikes, put that machine back to go again and say, "We lost this much."

- The federal government will reimburse the community for sand lost during a specific storm.

- You have to do it just, you know, for that event, hence why we survey just before the hurricane season, because, you know, we got a perfect snapshot.

- But who pays for beach nourishment when it's needed any other time of year?

In Carr County, we have, when you stay at a hotel, condo, you pay a 6% occupancy tax or bed tax.

That's a very common rate.

And half that goes to the sole purpose of oceanfront beach nourishment.

Besides the occupancy tax, which is our kind of bread and butter funding, each town has a little bit of a portion of their property tax going towards nourishment as well.

- Why put so much money into something that could wash away with the next storm?

The beach fuels an economic engine with ripple effects across the state.

- Well, the beach is our lifeblood.

I mean, this is what this place is all about, is the beach.

- Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the state of North Carolina, and the beaches are one of the biggest attractions.

- If you think about it, we don't have a convention center.

We don't have massive hotels.

We don't got the Carolina Panthers or the Hurricanes.

We have the beach, and we're up there with, you know, the big boys, if you will.

- For now, beach nourishment and the plan to pay for it is staying ahead of the changes brought by a warming climate.

- I mean, people spend their whole year thinking about that one week they're here at the beach.

- We love going on the beach with the grandchildren.

We love walking on the pier.

We love walking all around the neighborhood.

- The fishing and the restaurants and the hikes that we take around.

It's just a great place to be, you know, in the summertime.

- So from an economic feasibility perspective, unless there's an outlier in the future that we can't predict, if an engineered beach for us, at this point in time, is strong, then the future looks even more prosperous.

- The question is, how long will beach nourishment be able to keep up with a more dynamic coast?

And how long will we be able to afford it?

- If we have to nourish it every year, the same place, well, then that's gonna be, unsustainable.

Nourish the same place every three to five to seven years, we can do that.

[hopeful music] [dynamic music] - America's trails, parks, and public lands need constant upkeep so they stay safe and inviting for visitors.

But maintenance budgets everywhere are tight, so trash cleanup and tree clearing are often left to the hiking guides who depend on access to these pathways for their livelihoods.

In Idaho, Kris Millgate introduces us to some of these dedicated and energetic trailblazers.

- The Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC.

It was America's army of laborers shipped around the country to revive the economy during The Great Depression.

The unemployed found jobs as our nation's work relief program.

The government paid the men of the CCC $30 a month.

$5 went in their pocket.

25 went home to family.

They built trails, parks, and recreation areas that we still use today, but the program itself is long gone.

And the budget for all that labor is also long gone.

As the federal budget shrinks, the maintenance backlog grows.

Now, the people who value natural resources are filling the gap by maintaining trail for free.

They are this century's CCC.

We call them trailblazers.

[country music] - I do a lot of hunting with the llamas.

And that's really why I got them.

And then, I had to find a way to feed them.

My paycheck comes from the dirt and soil right here every year.

Public land.

From March 15th until the end of November, we're on a trail six days a week.

♪ ♪ We take people from all over the world.

[indistinct chatter] But we can't train and condition our llamas on the trails unless the trails are clear.

And the public can't use the trails unless the trails are clear.

If I could get paid to do nothing but spend time in the back country clearing and fixing trail and transporting gear back and forth, I would love that.

Get me out of the office.

Let everyone else guide the trips.

I'll just do that.

It's just a peaceful time, right?

Because it's just you and the mountain.

And, you know, at the end of the day, you're the one that lifted those logs.

Two years ago, we did 44 miles consistently in Utah.

And that was a bugger.

And we cleared the Great Western Trail so that we could use it.

And beforehand, we told the foresters, "Hey, we'd really like to use this trail."

"Okay."

And they more or less said, "Good luck finding it."

I said, "Okay.

We'll find this."

It took us two seasons to finish clearing it, but now, we offer some phenomenal trips there with some of the best vistas in the country probably.

Trail work is a lot more than just cutting logs and throwing them off the trail.

Sometimes you're taking stuff off the trail.

And sometimes you're putting stuff on the trail.

It's understanding what it is that makes the trail and is gonna maintain a trail and just doing your best to take care of it.

One of our roles that we kind of have just assumed is all the trails that we use, we make sure that they're clear in the spring.

It allows us to train our young llamas and then helps us give back in a way that really is just self-fulfilling and makes us feel like we're part of it, that, you know, we're actually giving back 'cause we make our living here.

[sawing] It's good for us to give back and say, hey, look, we care more about public lands than just making our living here.

It is hard work.

Yeah, and if you don't like to work and look at what you accomplish at the end of the day, definitely trail work is not for you.

- It's really hard work, maintaining trail.

When we're getting ready for a spring race, we have a hundred miles of trail that we have to get ready.

So a typical trail work day would mean probably running 30 miles of trail with a saw and snips in my pack.

We run every section of the course three times beforehand to make sure that the trails are clear.

You see a whole lot of things when you run a hundred miles.

A lot of trash is left at the trailheads.

We do end up cleaning up a lot of other people's messes.

Lots of plastic bottles, cans, pallets, TV screens.

Lots and lots of shotgun shells, cardboard boxes.

Just about everything you could imagine somebody leaving at the landfill.

[camera shutter clicks] It's hard when we've spent so much time caring for a place that we love and to see people not care and just to throw trash and leave so much behind that doesn't need to be there.

It can sometimes feel pretty futile that we're trying to keep it clean and we end up cleaning up year after year after year.

The resources of the forest around us just aren't there to be able to take care of that, so we fill in the gap.

The service requirement is super important for the runners to get connected to where they're running.

You have to get a little skin in the game.

And that's one way for them to become appreciative of the work that's done to keep the trails open.

It takes them from being someone who just recreates to someone who cares for the place and works on maintaining it.

- I don't think the people understand who comes and clears the trail.

I've cleared trail before, and someone said, "Hey, three miles up, there's a big log.

Make sure you cut that," thinking it was actually my job.

It's not.

It's a public service.

And so, people, if they just understood there's public land users that love it that are out there doing most of the work now... - I like to run.

I like to run on trails that I can run on.

And so, trail work is a little bit of a necessary evil to keep those runnable.

♪ ♪ I find a pretty deep connection with being out in wild places.

I like to be reminded that I'm part of this ecosystem, this planet.

- You know, nothing in life comes without a little bit of work and sacrifice, and it's always rewarding.

- It matters because we're all out there.

And we're making an impact.

And if we're not trying to minimize that, we're gonna love the places to death.

- We love these trails.

We'll take care of them.

You know, they give to us.

We'll give back to them.

[dynamic music] - The more time people spend on public lands, the stronger a connection they feel for them.

Runners, hikers, and hunters develop a passion for these wild places and realize how important it is to keep them clean and encourage others to do the same.

Now, here's a look at some stories coming up on our next show.

- We're fed up.

We deserve better, and we're gonna work together to make a change.

- In West Virginia, finally a cleanup of coalmining pollution.

♪ ♪ - What we do is bring out our five-gallon or two-gallon containers and fill them up so we have water available for the day.

- Lack of access to running water isn't just a problem in developing countries.

Some creative, off-the-grid solutions are providing access to water and changing lives in the Navajo community.

Next time on "This American Land."

- That's all for now, and thanks for joining us.

And be sure to check us out on social media.

We'll see you next time on "This American Land."

- For more information about "This American Land," check out our YouTube channel and watch us on PBS Passport.

♪ ♪ - Coming up on "This American Land"... new technology could help critically endangered right whales avoid deadly entanglements in fishing gear.

- We're goin' the extra mile to try and sustain the fisheries and the wildlife.

- First, I love helping out.

And second, I just love being outside in the nature, walking, and love being around, you know, beautiful people.

- Immigrants and refugees are thrilled that their new home in the U.S. comes with a welcome from the great outdoors.

They are eager to protect it and celebrate it.

- Whoo!

- Some other folks we'll meet have ties to the land going back generations.

- We have it pretty easy now.

[chuckles] I go out and stand in Ada's shed in the winter when the wind's blowin', there's no insulation out there, and the wind's just rippin' through there, and they were some tough people.

I'm proud to come from that stock.

- Modern-day homesteaders want to preserve the family dwellings of their tough-as-nails ancestors.

So keep in step, we'll dive into the future of fishing to make our oceans safer.

- It's going great so far.

- And wherever your home sweet home is, "This American Land" starts now.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪ - Hello, and welcome to "This American Land."

I'm your host, Ed Arnett.

And we've got some great stories for you today about America's landscapes, waters, and wildlife.

From coast to coast, you'll meet some of the dedicated people protecting our natural resources, whether it's safeguarding endangered species or helping to introduce a community to the great outdoors.

There's a determined effort underway to save North Atlantic right whales from extinction.

Their two enemies are ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear.

Now, some scientists and fishing crews are testing new ropeless equipment and their research is a crucial first step to try and protect the majestic animals that remain.

We went to the waters off the coast of Georgia to see the progress being made by these innovators.

- Our state marine mammal in Georgia is the North Atlantic right whale.

[whale spouts] We discovered that its calving grounds are off the coast of Georgia in the late '70s and early 1980s.

- Whoo!

- There's a lot of identity with the right whales down here.

While they're down here, they're not eating.

It's just the moms having the babies and nursing the babies and teaching 'em how to swim.

And, uh, for the length of my professional career, we've been working on conservation of the species.

However, the last few years, we've hit some road blocks.

- North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered.

There's 336 of them left here in North America.

[indistinct chatter] Rope entanglements, hmm.

They're a problem.

We know that whales can pick up rope from the bottom, we know they can pick it up vertically, and they can get tangled up in buoys on the surface.

- I got him.

He's in.

He's in.

He's in.

Back up, back up.

- Entanglement in thick, heavy rope or rope that has trailing gear, right, so big, heavy traps or a string of traps, can cause horrible abrasions, um, starvation, amputation...

I mean, it's-it's horrendous.

[dramatic music] And entanglement is a global problem, especially with some really healthy populations of whales that are rebounding in areas because of conservation.

The more whales there are in an area where there's commercial fishing, the greater the chances of an entanglement.

Who hasn't gotten rugburn in their life, right?

And that's what's happening to pretty much the whole surface of the animal where the rope is touching.

And they're trying to thrash and-and-and sort of roll around to get this line off, and it's pinching and cutting into them.

The worst possible outcome is death.

[surf crashing] [engine rumbling] - Well, there's a lot of people worrying about the whales right now.

[latches rattle] There's not a lot of people worrying about the fisherman.

[chuckles] Why don't you walk them over-- I'm Kim Sawicki.

I'm a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

And I'm also the founder of Sustainable Seas Technology.

This trailer goes around North America with me.

And we use the different tools and fishing gear in here to tweak fishing traps or pots.

- There we go.

- Through there, boss.

- I seen the whales out there.

And we should give them some kind of respect, you know?

- We're here with a bunch of black sea bass fishermen.

We're testing ropeless gear, "whale-safe" gear that's hopefully gonna be able to get these guys back open in their fishery.

We gotta weigh those first.

- So you in charge of this operation, or what?

Who's in charge here?

- Whoever's captaining the boat is in charge.

- We're goin' the extra mile to try and sustain the fisheries and the wildlife.

♪ ♪ - This is a unique gathering of fishermen, ropeless engineers, and gear researchers.

- We've all conceptualized creating a system that solves the same problem.

And we've all come about it in very different ways.

- The Pacman prototype right here.

- So now it, uh, blocked him off the ocean there, and we gotta put all the other gear down.

- This is a gear-marking system.

Those are the four that we just deployed.

- Still?

It's right over there.

- We're working on this project to be able to find some creative solutions that will hopefully get these guys back fishing in the winter where the whales are.

- We know that they're getting entangled in these lines, so the issue is getting rid of the lines in the water column.

[suspenseful music] - So our system uses an acoustic signal.

So either you have an on-demand rope... And then the other option is to actually create enough buoyancy to lift the trap up to the surface.

[indistinct chatter] - The Guardian system uses a galvanic timer to keep the buoy and rope with the pot on the bottom.

- So when the galvanic timer releases, it allows the buoy to come to the surface and then the fisherman is there to retrieve it.

- The key to success with the timers is just being there when they pop up so that there's the least chance for entanglement.

- The idea is that we need to let the guys handle the gear and really feel proficient with it... - I'll give you the phone here.

- And know they can do it on their own.

And then we need to let the decision be theirs.

"What is it you want it to do?"

"How should it be used?"

[sonar pings] - [chuckles] - I think part of the purpose of us being here is that these vendors and rule-makers or gear specialists are looking for the fisherman's input on how they need to build this equipment to suit us.

So, you know, right now, we have a special permit to use this gear.

And, hopefully, the data that we're collecting is gonna allow the fishery to be opened.

[soft upbeat music] But, um, truth is that we still have to be patient.

I been fishin' in the sea bass fishery my entire career.

Uh, it was probably between 60% and 80% of my income for this--you know, annually.

And, uh, we basically couldn't work 'bout six months out of the year, uh, after the closures.

♪ ♪ My name is Michael Cowdrey.

I'm a full-time commercial fisherman.

I been fishin' my entire life.

When my dad got out of the Marines, he had fell in love with fishin' and bought the "Lady Kay" which is the boat I have now.

In our fishin' business, our work is seasonal, okay?

So to be successful, you either find a fishery that makes you loads of money in that one season and you're set for the rest of the year, or you're like me and you have to fish multiple fisheries.

So what we're really lookin' to do here is fill in a void in our wintertime where we used to be very productive.

I'm at my house here in North Carolina in Sneads Ferry.

- This is the same distance on both of these.

- My son Landon is 14 and my daughter Gracelynn is 12.

And they're both homeschooled.

- That one's right.

Substitution.

- My wife was a teacher from Dixon, from our local school here.

- Okay.

[suspenseful music] - The fishery was jerked out from underneath us at a time it had been thriving.

Uh, we had no money.

We couldn't even afford rent.

And I wound up living as a homeless person on the Outer Banks.

There's been some years, especially through those closures, it was a very painful time.

I had to be separate from my family an awful lot.

It's, uh, sometimes more than one can bear.

My son, he enjoys fishing, but he has verbalized, "I don't wanna have to work the way Dad works."

♪ ♪ The fleet is declining, and young people are not getting into this fishing business at all.

♪ ♪ So when you see a video of a whale entanglement, you need to understand that the repercussions of the solutions to that, they impact a man and his wife and their children and a whole community of people.

There is a human aspect here that is very important.

- They're really good guys.

And they've gotten kicked around a lot.

- [indistinct] Cut a piece of wire with those.

- Okay.

- And I just think it's time that someone takes an interest in them and helps them with a problem instead of just shutting things down on them.

I mean, it's-it's a struggle.

So, you know, it's not just about saving the whales.

Kind of about saving the fishermen too.

[acoustic guitar music] - Remember your last hike?

Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and no stress?

Well, that's a brand-new experience for some people who've escaped dangers in troubled parts of the world.

The Refugee Women's Network in Atlanta is helping newcomers conquer all sorts of challenges.

And time spent in the outdoors is helping them build the strength and courage to do it.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - So he is the one who just-- ♪ ♪ - [speaking language] ♪ ♪ - Welcome to Panola Mountain.

I'm Temple.

I know most of y'all.

We have done seven hikes in beautiful places in Georgia.

And this is something we talk about a lot, which is stewardship and conservation, giving back.

- [speaking language] - So it means that, uh, you are taker and you are giver.

When you take something, you're supposed to give it back something better.

- Service, um, to me, it's giving back, obviously, uh, but it's also taking care of someone or something that you care about.

♪ ♪ - Here is another place, it's, like, a lot-- - Refugee Women's Network is a 25-year-old organization located in Clarkston and Decatur, Georgia.

We help empower refugee and immigrant women in areas of leadership, health, um, education, and self-sufficiencies.

We're really excited for these courageous women who have come to give back.

- My name is Katherine Moore.

I'm honored to serve as president of Georgia Conservancy.

♪ ♪ Panola Mountain is a place where we often stage service projects.

That ensures that these places are as well-maintained as possible.

I think deepens the connections that individuals have with our public lands.

For us to find a relationship like the one we have with the Refugee Women's Network, to welcome the newest Georgians to Georgia's special places, feels incredibly rewarding.

♪ ♪ - This is a children's play area that's been overgrown by grass, so we are taking the grass out and putting the mulch in to make it play-friendly again.

- First, I love helping out.

And second, I just love being outside in the nature, walking, and love being around, you know, beautiful people.

My name is Kimona Malembou.

I am from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This place here, uh, you can speak up your mind.

It doesn't matter where you came from, if you can speak English well or not, you got a group of people who are there to support you.

- Y'all ready?

- Yeah.

- Cool.

Let's go this way then.

- We're also very experienced hikers.

This is our-- this is our eighth hike.

[indistinct chatter] - So "sips of gratitude" was a way of saying, "Let's take a pause.

"Let's put down our phones.

Let's look at each other.

"Let's take a sip and think about something we're grateful for."

- Everything that God has provided us with, life, eating, water, everything.

- I am also grateful for the community.

And, the last time I had gone hiking with y'all, I was very stressed about work.

And it's so nice to be on the other end to just-- able to just, like, enjoy.

- [speaking language] - So I'm a housewife.

I don't work outside.

I have kids.

So when it's weekend, I try to give one day to myself and just go out and have the time for myself.

Also, this is my second year in hiking group and I'm also trying to encourage other women to come and join us.

- I never, never, ever went hiking before.

So I was confused what I should wear.

But, Temple, she give us the whole details about the clothes, about the shoes, about the--um, even sunblock.

We have different clients from different communities, like, from Arab communities, Africa, from Afghanistan.

So it's a good chance to meet with another people, uh, to talk with another woman.

So it's really important to support these women.

♪ ♪ - We work with women who are newly arrived here all the way to maybe they've been here 20 years.

'Course people are coming from conflict zones, from poverty.

They may be highly educated in their home country but may not be able to be employed here.

I did volunteer and did some research at a place in London for asylum-seekers that were survivors of torture and trauma.

So I was able to, for eight months, go on monthly hikes.

And as they got stronger, we were able to climb the three highest peaks of the UK.

That was such an inspiration that when I started to work at Refugee Women's Network and asked Sushma, our director, about starting a hiking group, she quickly agreed.

- Hi.

Oh, my gosh.

I've never seen the three of you together.

- Yeah.

- Really?

[chuckles] - No.

This is so cute.

Aww.

- My name's Mary.

This will be my second time kayaking.

I did it once in Nigeria.

And I think I loved the experience enough to want to continue it.

- My name is Gulbahar.

I'm originally from Tajikistan.

I'm here in the States for the last one month, so I'm kind of new.

[chuckles] It's the first experience for me kayaking.

- You wanna put your hands on both sides, try and stay centered.

And when you put your feet in there, there's two pedals.

And the big part at the top.

So you wanna put it over your head like that and then go like this... That's good.

You're good.

No, you're good.

- Oh, I feel happy.

So happy.

You know, for a long time, I wanted to do this.

I'm a hiker, but I've never been on the water in a kayak.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

It--this was in my bucket list.

[chuckles] [laughter] - This?

[indistinct chatter] ♪ ♪ - Yeah.

♪ ♪ [giggling] ♪ ♪ [indistinct chatter] - [laughing] - It's going great so far.

A little trouble turning, but--[giggles] I think--wait, wait.

It's the other way around.

- Nahid, how's it going?

- Whoo!

- Just paddle on your right.

Keep paddling on your right.

- I know.

- Yeah.

There you go.

♪ ♪ [chuckling] ♪ ♪ - Hey.

- Ooh, I think I'm getting it.

- How's it going for you?

- Wonderful.

[chuckles] - My sisters are having so much fun, oh, my God.

You can hear them just... squealing back there.

- You know, everything takes time.

Was, like, 30 minutes they figured it out.

That was good.

Everybody's happy.

- It was great.

Thank you.

- That really gets us out of, like, our comfort zone.

That's basically what growth is.

Like--I don't know.

Maybe wanna make me try more things that are, like, something that I wouldn't do but, like, it turns out to be, like, super fun.

♪ ♪ - Well, I would say half of the women today probably didn't know how to swim.

That's a leap.

That's so scary.

They trusted that people from Refugee Women's Network were gonna put their safety first.

I feel like I'm so honored to be in the presence of people that overcome obstacles, um, and bond together and help each other.

♪ ♪ [acoustic guitar music] - Early settlers in the West battled isolation and dangerous terrain to build their homes and new lives.

Some of the descendants of these homesteaders are finding ways to preserve the undeveloped, raw beauty of these lands.

Kris Millgate has more on the protections designed that'll last generations to come.

- There's an influx of people moving to Western states, but this isn't the West's first mass migration.

That happened more than a century ago with the Homestead Act.

Some of those homesteads are still standing today, representing the last chunks of land that are not subdivisions.

And if the owners have their way, those original homesteads will still be standing, undeveloped, in the next century.

- Ada and Dudley Armstrong... they're my grandparents, and they moved from Virginia in 1897.

They homesteaded this and it's still in the family.

♪ ♪ I'm the one that inherited this.

[latch rattles] It's really home to me on a lot of levels.

Yeah.

These partitions were in here because we used it as a granary.

But it was open when she was living in it.

This was the kitchen area.

That was her little shelf for flour and things.

You can see here where the potbelly stove went up through there.

You can see the old wallpaper remnants on the wall.

We have it pretty easy now.

[chuckles] I go out and stand in Ada's shed in the winter when the wind's blowin, there's no insulation out there, and the wind's just rippin' through there, and they were some tough people.

I'm proud to come from that stock.

[gentle upbeat music] ♪ ♪ Well, I'm not gonna live forever, and I feel like I'm just a steward here, a placeholder for this property, and when I'm not here anymore, whoever owns this, they're not gonna be able to develop it.

♪ ♪ - This property is located in what's considered to be the sagebrush steppe ecosystem.

♪ ♪ There's a lek on this property.

A lek is an area where the sharp-tailed grouse gather every spring to perform their mating ritual, which is a really elaborate and really unique ritual.

- And you can see 'em just doing their dance and it's really impressive.

- If there's a subdivision here, you're not gonna see the grouse.

You're not gonna see the wildlife.

- We have put it in conservation easement so that it can never be developed.

When I was growin' up, there was, like, maybe 100 people here, 150.

And now everybody's breakin' off pieces and people are comin' from town and buildin' houses, and so we're gonna protect our property from that.

- Conservation easements are a way that gives a landowner peace of mind.

And no matter who owns the property in the future, the rights and the restrictions that are included in that conservation easement agreement are going to continue to the next generation and beyond.

- Grandma worked really hard with all the hard sweat and tears to make it possible for me to live here.

And just to divide it up and sell it for money, I think is just really wrong.

Uh, disrespectful to her and disrespectful to the Native Americans who this land originally belonged to.

- There's a lot of rich history here, and they're paying tribute to their heritage and tribute to the people that came-- that were here before us.

- We need to remember where we came from, and we need to remember who paved the way and how hard that was.

And we need to not forget that.

♪ ♪ [acoustic guitar music] - Viewers often ask us how they can get involved with activities that strengthen our connections to the great outdoors.

Temple Moore from the Refugee Women's Network says start out simple, be consistent, and make everyone welcome.

- I think the first is getting involved with an organization and building trust and knowing what that community or organization needs.

As far as getting outside, you know, once you take that first step in the woods, um, that's gonna be something that connects you to your local environment.

And you might meet other people that are interested in doing the same thing.

And so a lot of it starts with trust.

It starts with taking that brave first step.

And then if you're wanting to start a group, it is about, you know, becoming trusted by a community, and being consistent, and, um, keeping it simple so everyone has a good time and feels successful at the end.

♪ ♪ - Now, here's a look at some stories from our next show.

- These desert tortoises live in a tough neighborhood.

[gunshots] - How do we conserve the species while also allowing the Marines to train.

- In the Mojave Desert, scientists and U.S. Marines go the extra mile to protect this threatened reptile, and it's working.

- The other side of it is stewardship, what Marines do.

We protect America.

We protect America's resources for future posterity.

- [yells] all: Oorah!

- The care and feeding of North Carolina's beaches.

They're the lifeblood of the state's tourism, but threatened by storms and sea level rise.

- We really enjoy being waterfront and seein' how it changes-- how we lose sand, how we gain sand.

The bad part is, you know, when the hurricanes come, we're gonna be the ones that get the first hit.

- Next time on "This American Land."

- Thanks for joining us.

And be sure to check us out on social media.

We'll see you next time on "This American Land."

- For more information about "This American Land," check out our YouTube channel and watch us on PBS Passport.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪