The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District isn’t the only one celebrating a milestone in 2022: our 50th Anniversary presenting partner Green Foothills also turns 60 this year. Born from the same crucible of rapidly developing post-1950s sprawl engulfing the Peninsula foothills, Midpen and what was then known as the Committee for Green Foothills share a close and intertwining history.
Green Foothills was formally founded in 1962 in the Spangenberg family’s living room in Palo Alto, with Ruth Spangenberg serving as the new group’s vice president and the legendary writer-environmentalist Wallace Stegner as president. Stegner was teaching creative writing a Stanford and had recently penned his Wilderness Letter urging protection of remaining wild places. “Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed,” he wrote, an idea often credited with bolstering testimony in favor of the 1964 Wilderness Act. On Memorial Day that year, Stegner invited the public to Green Foothills' first “Picnic with a Purpose.”
“Our 27 founders had just recently dusted themselves off and regrouped after losing a campaign to save Palo Alto’s foothills from what would become the Stanford Industrial Park,” notes current Green Foothills Executive Director Megan Fluke. “They were concerned that all of the Peninsula foothills would disappear if a more concerted effort was not made to save them. So they decided to start a nonprofit dedicated to preserving local nature.”
Ten years later, in August 1972, Green Foothills was again inviting the public to another picnic, this one in the redwoods, to campaign for the “Room to Breathe Initiative” ballot measure that passed in November 1972 with 67.71% approval to create Midpen as a special district public agency. Green Foothills was instrumental to the campaign’s success. Five of the nine people credited with founding Midpen were connected to Green Foothills: board members Nonette Hanko, Mary Davey, Lennie Roberts, Bill Spangle and Tom Brown.
That investment has paid great dividends according to Lennie Roberts, who still serves as a Green Foothills legislative advocate. “Today the District has safeguarded many thousands of acres from advancing urban sprawl and allowed environmental advocacy organizations like Green Foothills to create enduring victories instead of merely holding off defeats for another year or another decade,” Roberts said. “The District’s innovative land management includes restoration of damaged habitats, introduction of conservation grazing practices, and designing the most advanced wildlife crossings of busy Highway 17 as well as other measures to address climate change — all this thanks to the enduring legacy of the Founders.”
Green Foothills still plays an important role in Midpen’s work by advocating for the protection of open spaces, farmlands and natural resources. The footprints of Green Foothills can be found in the histories of many of Midpen’s open space preserves, as much of what you don’t see when you see open space is the result of Green Foothills grassroots advocacy: instead of a subdivision, Long Ridge Open Space Preserve is bigger; instead of a subdivision and an unpermitted motorcycle park, the watershed at El Corte de Madera Creek is protected; rather than a golf course, condos and luxury homes, the hills and farm fields surrounding the Johnston House near Half Moon Bay are still open space and productive cropland; there are no new oil wells near Purisima and La Honda creeks on the Coastside; Monte Bello; Bear Creek Redwoods – the list is long and continues to grow.
Happy anniversary, Green Foothills -- we share your vision for “a resilient region where wildlife thrives, everyone has natural beauty to enjoy, and communities live in balance with nature,” and are proud to partner with you From 50 to Forever.