Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, one of the state’s oldest environmental advocacy organizations, is making plans to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
The group, founded on July 29, 1971, will mark its five decades of shoreline protection with a day of live and online presentations and events. All activities, which will take place Thursday, July 29, are free and open to the public.
The coalition was initially founded to campaign for Oregon’s Beach Bill, which reserved all of the state’s shoreline up to the vegetation line as a public area. In the decades since, the group’s focus has steadily widened to include all of the coastal region from the top of the Coast Range to the edge of the continental shelf.
The 50th anniversary activities will kick off with two guided beach walks – a tidepool-oriented walk at Sunset Bay State Park in Coos County, and a more sandy-shore-focused tour at Manhattan Beach, just north of Rockaway Beach on U.S. Highway 101. Both start at 10:30 a.m. For details on both events visit the CoastWatch page on Oregon Shores’ website, https://oregonshores.org/coastwatch.
The remainder of the activities are online. They include presentations by:
- Phillip Johnson, Oregon Shores’ executive director. Beginning at 3 p.m., he will discuss the organization’s history and give an overview of both the group’s current programs and its plan for the next 50 years.
- Geologist Orrin Pilkey, an author and professor emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Duke University. His talk will begin at 4 p.m.
- Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction. Her presentation will begin at 7 p.m.
For more information, contact Phillip Johnson, 503-754- 303, phillip@oregonshores.org; or Jesse Jones, CoastWatch volunteer coordinator, 503-989-7244, jesse@oregonshores.org.
A single registration will cover the entire day; audience members may join in whenever they wish. To register, go to the group’s website.
