Tracks on the Oregon Trail
In the 1840s covered wagons carried 30,000 Americans west to find a ' Better Life'. They found it in Oregon, in the beautiful and fertile valleys of the Pacific north west. They learnt to care for their new paradise and passed on that concern to sons and grandsons.
In the 1970s new trails were blazed in Oregon; legislation has made it the most environmentally protected spot in the western world. Modern Oregon was first to clean up its polluted rivers; first to introduce a 55mph speed limit; first to require refunds not only on bottles, but on cans too; first to ban the rip-off can cap; first to give fare-free rides on city buses; first to ban poisonous herbicides. Horizon visits the state that's become the symbol for a new America. Could it be a blue-print for the rest of us? Or will the pioneers' paradise give way to the pressures of the 1980s? Narrator TONY BRITTON
A fascinating and cheering programme
(OBSERVER)
Editor SIMON CAMPBELL-JONES Written and produced by CHRISTOPHER RILEY