Oregon’s environmentally minded Gov. Tom McCall championed bipartisan passage of Oregon’s pioneering land-use legislation in 1973. He called it “the brightest jewel in the Oregon diadem of innovations.” The next year McCall and other prominent Oregonians founded a private, non-profit association called the 1000 Friends of Oregon to watch over the new program. One of its founders was the editor of the Medford Mail Tribune, Eric Allen Jr. The vice president of the citizen council was Allen Bateman of Klamath Falls.
The approval of Senate Bill 100 authorized the creation of the Land Conservation and Development Commission. The commission set goals that were met by 1986 for retaining farm land for farming, forest land for forestry, and wild places for wildlife. 1000 Friends has identified 40 places that illustrate Oregon’s success in caring for land and communities. Among these special places in Southern Oregon are the Umpqua River and the Illinois River Valley, and the cranberry bogs and lily fields In Coos and Curry Counties.
The organization helped create the Rogue Valley Food Systems Network that maintains food-producing farm land near urban areas.
Sources: "The Land Use Trail." 1000 Friends of Oregon. 1000 Friends of Oregon, 2014. Web. 18 Aug. 2014. " Landmark . 1000 Friends of Oregon, 2013. Web. 18 Aug. 2014; "McCall, others organize group to act as land use watchdog." Oregonian 9 Jan. 1975 [Portland, Ore.] . Print; Mortenson, Eric. “For 1000 Friends of Oregon, land-use legacy is a flame that needs tending.” The Oregonian 4 November 2011 [Portland, Ore.]; McCloskey, Michael. Conserving Oregon’s Environment, Breakthroughs that Made History, First ed. Portland, Ore: Inkwater Press, 2013. 87-94.
