Abstract:
The Willamette River Basin, Oregon, viewed in terms of a cultural-ecological system, has been subject to three phases of cultural development: hunting and gathering, agrarian, and industrial-urban. Each population base has employed a technology to exploit the environment to the extent that its patterns of culture would allow. This technology has been oriented towards one relevant resource within the ecological system--the Willamette River. The environmental quality of the Willamette River began to show signs of impairment with the onset of the industrial-urban development, and the use of a more sophisticated technology. Only through the efforts of a few concerned citizens did the quality of the water begin to improve by the mid-Twentieth Century. The Willamette River Greenway emerges as a governmental
response to renew the relevant resource of the cultural-ecological system. Public attitudes toward the Greenway indicate that basin residents feel industrial-urban technology should be utilized to renew the Willamette River, allowing it to once again become the cultural focal point of the ecological system.
