A6
NEWS
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Wallowa County man worked 32 years as USFS civil engineer
James
Dike
spent 32 years
working for the
U.S. Forest Ser-
vice in Wallowa
County as a civil
engineer,
retir-
ing in 1994. As
such, he mostly
designed and built
logging roads into
and out of Forest Service lands.
He and his late wife, Gail — who died
Wallowa County
VOICES
By Bill Bradshaw
a year ago — raised four children before
moving here. They also have nine grand-
children and two great-grandchildren.
His plans for the new year include get-
ting his house sold so he can move closer
to family in Bend including his youngest
daughter, Janelle Wilcox, and her family.
But for now, he’s still enjoying life in
Enterprise. He shared his thoughts on liv-
ing in Wallowa County.
What’s the best thing or place in
Wallowa County?
It’s quiet, peaceful and has a relaxing
atmosphere.
What is the greatest challenge fac-
ing Wallowa County?
The distance to travel to visit relatives
and things like that.
What can people do to make Wal-
lowa County a better place for all of
us?
Just be more friendly.
What have you learned from living
in Wallowa County?
The goodness of people and how they
can look after each other and be good
neighbors.
What’s your advice for people who
are thinking about moving here?
It would be a great place to raise a
family and there’s lots of things to look
forward to.
Researcher examines ‘tipping points’ that can lead to rapid deforestation
Tomasz Stepinski
University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
geography researchers have
identifi ed a tipping point for
deforestation that leads to
rapid forest loss.
Geography
profes-
sor Tomasz Stepinski used
high-resolution
satellite
images from the European
Space Agency to study land-
scapes in 9-kilometer-wide
blocks across every inch of
the planet between 1992 and
2015. He found that defor-
estation occurs compara-
tively slowly in these blocks
until about half of the for-
est is gone. Then the remain-
ing forest disappears very
quickly.
The study was published
in the journal Geophysical
Research Letters.
Stepinski and former
UC postdoctoral researcher
Jakub Nowosad, the lead
author, discovered some-
thing surprising and funda-
mental: nature abhors mixed
landscapes, at least on a scale
Donar Reiskoff er
Even, dense old-growth stand of beech trees (Fagus sylvatica)
in the Brussels part of the Sonian Forest.
of 81 square kilometers. The
study showed that mixed
landscapes (like agriculture
and forest) are comparatively
few and, more surprisingly,
do not stay mixed for long.
These mixed blocks tend to
become homogeneous over
time, regardless of the land-
scape type.
“I think it’s very intuitive.
It corresponds to the differ-
ent climatic zones. The Earth
before people was certainly
like that. You had forests and
mountains and wetlands and
deserts,” Stepinski said. “You
would expect people would
create more fragmentation,
but as it turns out, people
never stop. They convert the
entire block on a large scale.”
Stepinski said landscapes
are always changing through
natural or anthropological
causes. Human causes are
both direct, like clear-cut-
ting, or indirect like climate
change.
Last year, Stepinski used
the same data to demonstrate
that 22% of the Earth’s hab-
itable surface was altered in
measurable ways between
1992 and 2015. The biggest
change: forest to agriculture.
For the new study,
Stepinski examined nearly
1.8 million blocks cover-
ing Earth’s seven continents.
Blocks were categorized by
64 landscape combinations.
Researchers observed tran-
sitions in these blocks from
predominantly one type to
predominantly another in
nearly 15% of the blocks
between 1992 and 2015.
“The data we have cov-
ers 23 years. That’s a rela-
tively short period of time.
But from that we can calcu-
late change in the future,”
Stepinski said.
Deforestation was the
most pronounced example
of human-caused landscape
change, researchers found.
They used probability mod-
eling known as Monte Carlo
methods to determine the
likelihood of different types
of landscape change over
time (in this case hundreds of
years).
The result? Researchers
found that the most likely tra-
jectory of change was from
one homogeneous type to
another.
“Planet Earth wants to be
homogeneous. The land wants
to be the same in all these
patches. And when they start
to change, they don’t stop until
they convert everything into
another homogeneous block,”
he said.
The authors did not exam-
ine why blocks change so
quickly once a transition
begins. But Stepinski said
it’s possible that develop-
ment such as logging roads or
drainage required to clear for-
est makes continued change
that much easier.
“I can only speculate
because that was not part of
the study, but I would imagine
two things are happening,” he
said. “If you are cutting forest,
you have the infrastructure
to fi nish it. It’s so much eas-
ier to cut the rest. Second, the
forest is more vulnerable to
T HE B OOKLOFT
AND
Skylight Gallery
Finding books is our specialty
541.426.3351 • 107 E. Main • Enterprise • www.bookloftoregon.com
Church
Directory
St. Katherine’s
Catholic Church
Grace Lutheran
Church
Fr. Thomas Puduppulliparamban
301 E. Garfield Enterprise
Mass Schedule
409 West Main -Enterprise
Sundays:
St. Pius X, Wallowa - 8:00 am
St. Katherine of Siena, Enterprise 10:30am
Saturdays:
St Katherine of Siena, Enterprise 5:30pm
Weekday:
St. Katherine of Siena, Enterprise – 8:00am
(Monday – Thursday and First Friday)
SUNDAY WORSHIP at 9am
January 12, 2020
Douglas Vaughan • Guest Pastor
All are welcome
phone (message): 541-426-4633
web: gracelutheranenterprise.com
Joseph United
Methodist Church
St. Patrick’s
Episcopal Church
3rd & Lake St. • Joseph
Pastor Cherie Dearth
Phone: 541-432-3102
Sunday Worship Service
10:00 am
100 NE 3rd St, Enterprise
NE 3rd & Main St
541-426-3439
Worship Service
Sunday 9:30am
JosephUMC.org
Enterprise
Christian Church
85035 Joseph Hwy • (541) 426-3449
Worship at 9 a.m.
Sunday School at 10:30 a.m.
Evening Worship at 6 p.m.
(nursery at A.M. services)
CLUES ACROSS
1. Dampens
5. ___ in a blanket
9. Burning reminder
14. Leave out
15. On a yacht, maybe
16. “Groovy!”
17. Subject of many a tasting
18. Train wheel guide
19. Fortune-telling deck
20. Person who’s never the first one to blink?
23. Mandolin duo?
24. Choose
25. American territory in Micronesia
27. “Gulliver’s Travels” beings who love
precious stones
30. Topped tortilla
33. In vitro cells
34. Trilateral ‘90s treaty
37. Overused
38. Fat that may be rendered
40. Weed-seizing cops
42. Barely managed, with “out”
43. Struck with a joint
45. Contractor’s bid
47. Before, before
48. Narrow waterways
50. Left stage right, e.g.
52. On top of that
53. Bridge great Charles
55. Actress Wong or Larter
57. What wills may fill?
62. California rolls and such
64. Credit card choice
65. Peer group
66. “Let me clear that up ...”
67. Column with a viewpoint
68. “Blue Bloods” daughter
69. Parsley unit
70. “___ Declassified School Survival Guide”
71. Heavy reading?
CLUES DOWN
1. Really impresses
2. Give off
3. Fey of “Sisters”
4. Sound system
5. Spaghetti topper
6. Physics pioneer Newton
7. “Morning Joe” co-host Willie
8. What a bland meal may need
9. Place confidence in
10. “Give ___ break!”
11. Where Lady Godiva does her
shopping?
12. Prince Harry’s alma mater
13. Decomposes
21. Musk of SpaceX
22. Psychoanalysis topic
26. End in ___
27. Whites’ counterparts
28. ___-garde
29. Rabbit farmer’s kin?
30. Filled tortilla
31. Name on a tractor
32. Threw in
35. Online help sources, briefly
36. Nickname for Capote
39. Many a Black Friday offer
41. Olympians shouldn’t use them
44. Spreading gossip
46. Corporate VIP
49. Body part you may wiggle
51. Laser alternative, in printing
53. Complain
54. Chose
55. Yard sale disclaimer
56. Piece of coal
58. Screen symbol
59. French currency
60. Slim and fit
61. End of a New Year’s Eve song title
63. Okinawa “OK!”
Summit Church
Gospel Centered Community
Service time: 10:30 am
Cloverleaf Hall in Enterprise
541-426-2150
Pastor: David Pendleton
“Loving God & One Another”
David Bruce, Sr. - Minister
www.summitchurchoregon.org
Lostine
Presbyterian Church
Christ Covenant
Church
Discussion Group 9:30 AM
Worship Service 11:00 AM
Pastor Terry Tollefson
Church Office: 541-263-0505
Childrens program during service
Blog: dancingforth.blogspot.com
Family Prayer 9 a.m.
Sunday School 9:30 a.m.
Worship Service 10:30 a.m.
541.398.0597
Hwy 82, Lostine
Stephen Kliewer, Minister
Wallowa
Assembly
of God
702 West Hwy 82
Wallowa, Oregon
541-886-8445
Sunday School • 9:am
Worship Service • 10:am
Pastor Tim Barton
Visit Us on
Seventh-Day Adventist
Church & School
723 College Street, Lostine
Enterprise Community
Congregational Church
change when there has been a
disturbance.”
Wildlife managers often
try to preserve larger intact
blocks to prevent fragmen-
tation, said Martin McCal-
lister, the Appalachian For-
est project manager for the
Edge of Appalachia Nature
Preserve in southern Ohio.
The preserve is managed by
the Nature Conservancy, one
of the world’s largest wildlife
conservation organizations.
“You’d be hard pressed
to fi nd land managers who
wouldn’t be strongly in favor
of protecting larger tracts
because they’re more resil-
ient to a variety of challenges,
including invasive species
and climate change,” McCal-
lister said. “Once a property
gets fragmented by roads, it’s
easier to extract resources.
It’s also easier for invasive
species and pests to get a
foothold.”
McCallister said wood-
lands can be fragmented on
paper, too.
“In Ohio, 96 percent of
our woodland owners have
less than 50 acres. They rep-
resent a lot of small parcels,”
he said.
The UC study found that
mixed land types don’t stay
mixed for long.
“I think it is interesting
that this property applies
both to natural and human
landscapes,” said co-author
Nowosad, a former UC post-
doctoral researcher who now
works as an assistant profes-
sor at the Adam Mickiewicz
University in Poland.
Nowosad said the study
provides a data-driven model
of long-term landscape
change. While research-
ers only looked at changes
between forest and agricul-
ture, Nowosad said it would
be worthwhile to exam-
ine whether tipping points
exist for other landscape
transitions.
“This model can be used
to help understand how land-
scapes evolved and are going
to evolve in the future,”
Nowosad said.
Stepinski, a physicist who
worked for NASA before
coming to UC, said the prin-
ciple borrows from other
disciplines,
particularly
astrophysics.
“If you look at the evolu-
tion of stars, the principle is
you predict a long-term path
statistically from short-term
knowledge,” Stepinski said.
“It’s an idea that has been
used elsewhere but never for
environmental study.”
While it’s only a theory,
it’s one that could be borne
out by time, he said.
“It’s thought-provoking.
My hope is that people will
criticize it and come up with
different ideas,” Stepinski
said.
THANKS
FOR
SHOPPING!
The Big Brown Church
with an open door
Sundays 11:00 am
Pastor Archie Hook
Bible Studies: Thurs, 6:30 pm
Sundays 9:30 am
Children’s program during
Sunday worship
301 NE First St. • Enterprise, OR
Find us on Facebook! 541.426.3044
Open 10 to 5
every day
Follow us on
Facebook and Instagram
Shop online
www.temptingteal
boutique.com
305 Wagner (near the Cemetery)
P.O. Box N. Enterprise, OR 97828
541-426-3751 Church
541-426-8339 School
Worship Services
Sabbath School 9:30 - 10:45 a.m.
Worship Hour 11:00 a.m. - Noon
Uptown Clothing & Accessories
in Downtown Joseph
12 S. Main St. • 541-432-9653