Barack Obama Is the Voice of the National Parks in New Netflix Series

First there was Jacques Cousteau. Then, there was David Attenborough. Now, the surprise new voice of nature documentaries: Barack Obama.

The former president will narrate Our Great National Parks, a five-episode Netflix series about natural areas around the world and the wildlife that lives in them. With Obama as the guide, each episode will take viewers to destinations including Monterey Bay, Patagonia, and Kenya’s Tsavo National Park. 

While Netflix announced the series nearly a year ago, the company kept Obama’s role secret until the release of the series’ first trailer on Tuesday. The 2.5-minute video mixes footage of Obama talking to the camera on a beach with shots of herds of elephants walking along the savannah at sunset, pods of killer whales, erupting volcanoes, and misty forests.

“When humanity started to protect these wild places, we did not realize how important they would become,” Obama says in the trailer for the series. “They’re a haven for endangered species and a hotbed for scientific research.”

Besides narrating the series, Barack and Michelle Obama will produce the series via their company, Higher Ground Productions, which helped create the Academy-award-winning documentary American Factory, the children’s series Waffles + Mochi, and the Kevin Hart-starring feature film Fatherhood.

During his two terms in office, Obama’s administration protected more land than any previous president—550 million acres of land and water in total—and created a number of new national monuments, including the controversial Bears Ears in southern Utah.