Conserving America’s Wildlands: The Vision of Ted Turner

Over a lifetime, CNN founder Ted Turner has dedicated two million private acres to a globally unparalleled project to reintroduce and restore the species that once roamed freely there.

Ted Turner was for many years the largest private-property owner in America and known for his establishment of the largest bison herds in the world. From this beginning, his holdings have grown to be refuges of biodiversity for some of the most endangered species in the world, from migratory birds to fish and insects, and from wolves to grizzly bears.

Rhett Turner explores his father’s devotion to leaving nature in better shape than he found it by taking us across nearly two dozen of the Turner family’s properties--from the northern Rockies to the prairies of the Dakotas to the southeastern Atlantic coastal plains and pine forests--land equal to the size of Yellowstone National Park.

Rhett Turner is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker. Turner cut his teeth in photojournalism as an editor at CNN’s Tokyo news bureau. Todd Wilkinson has been an environmental journalist and author for thirty-five years. He is a western correspondent for National Geographic and the Guardian and author of several acclaimed books, including Last Stand: Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a TroubledPlanet. Former President Jimmy Carter is an American philanthropist, former politician, and businessman who served as the thirty-ninth president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.