Strategic Environmental Focus 15Th Birthday

Me listening heavily to the presentation

Kanya, Vici and Areeg at breakfast

Our Straight picture

You know me...we gotta have a crazy photo!!

Retrenchments are still Plan A to God

Retrenchment is never a great process to go through and how does one really deal with it? Just the sound of the word retrenchment makes me think of a deep trench – a trench of horrible things – depression, loss of hope, meaning and everything that is bad. But how do you deal with it when it is you that is going through the process? It really makes one question....is it really Gods Plan?

That unexpected wave of depression came over me when I found out that our company was retrenching people. Part of me was worried about my own job security and the other part of me was hurting for those who were getting retrenched – the single mothers, the single bread winners of a family, the heads of the family. I also felt sympathy for those who had to do the retrenchment - what do you say? How do you act? It was very logical why our company was doing this but can you really separate yourself form the emotions of it all? Can you really do retrenchments and say – its just business?  

K.K gave me this photo to add to my blog! Love you girl. 

Even though these emotions were eating at me, I was reassured about Gods Plan by my friend who was one of the most vulnerable of those being retrenched.  She is a single mom of three and had just come back from maternity leave. How was she going to support her family now? I thought about all our weekly prayer sessions we had had as friends and thought about how we prayed specifically for our company and for management and the decisions they make. And hearing this retrenchment news really made me think “But Lord were you listening to our prayers?” but I really think He is saying “I did listen to your prayers but are you listening to me? Can’t you see that I am answering them?” My friend simply put her situation like this – “Kanya there is no plan B in Gods books, there is only a Plan A. He will get me though this process better than any trial he has ever given me.”  My friend has already got a call for a number of interviews and we have faith that whatever is to come...  is GOOD.

So although I am staying in this company, for now,  I want to hold onto my friends testimony of Gods Plan. Her courage, strength and confidence in Gods plan must not be forgotten and I think it taught management about the power of trusting God. Although I will miss her dearly I know it was all Plan A. We really should keep our focus on God and his plan and not on the things of this world, no matter how bad the change is.  How we deal with change is such an important thing on how we move forward with our lives and the Blessings to come. Never forget that God works all things for the good of those who love Him…..All things – even Retrenchments.

The Triple A Concept to CHANGE

Why is it that an unexpected change never really feels positive at first? Well that’s how I felt when I had to move from my own private office to the Hostel. The people here call it the hostel because there are so many people working in one space. So you can imagine the emotions I felt when I got the call that I might have to move. Yup I felt like I was being demoted, unappreciated and uncool. But this whole experience lead me to discover the Triple A concept which is Accept (believe that it is for the better) Adapt (make the situation work for you) and Apply (ignite a positive change in yourself and others by applying goodness).

The first step to this adjustment was accepting it. In my case I really thought about why I was emotional about the move. Was I being punished? No! Were they rude about it? No they were very polite about it. Was I the only one getting moved? No, 5 others were getting moved. Suddenly the situation didn’t feel like a shot at me but an external shot at the company. I thought – what if God had planned this move? Suddenly I had a totally different perspective and thought…. Well if so then I better accept it.

Then there was the adaptation part. The key to it is making the situation work for you. For example they were moving me to a spot which faced the door which probably was the worst spot in the office. Plus I have a terrible attention span and the fact that I was by the door would mean noooo work was going to be done because I would watch every person walk by or comment on everything. So to overcome this I put a huge shelve in front of my desk – and problem solved. Unless you are Floris who is almost 6 feet tall I don’t see anyone walking into the office. Then there was the issue of watching other people in my peripheral view – how they eat, read, work and maybe sleep. So I placed both my laptop and my desktop computer up on my desk which created a “wall”. My desk looks hectic man. It is as if I have a dual monitor thang and I don’t see anyone unless I want to. I am so hidden that sometimes people walk in the office and don’t even notice I am here. It might look pretty ridiculous and obvious that I am hiding but that was the point and it worked for me. I have managed to create my ideal working environment regardless of my surroundings.

To apply, in my case, is to allow the change to change you and others for the Good. It is important to note “for the good” because “for the bad” can take place and cause destruction. I believe this section has a lot to do with accepting peoples characters and appreciating their role in your life. It has been about 3 months since I have moved and I have gotten to know other SEF staff a lot better and actually feel positive about it. Betty and Ronaldo are always keeping us up to date with the transportation routes from Johannesburg to Pretoria and give us weather reports. Sometimes Ronaldo even calls us to warn us of traffic on the road (he has a Super GPS). Vanessa and Carene are planning weddings for next year and it is always exciting to share wedding tips or marriage tips with them. Then there is Eben and Quinton who are only in the office on Mondays and Fridays; however, when they are here they always having heated environmental discussions in Afrikaans which sometimes is very entertaining. Some of us have even started a small prayer group. The rest pretty much keep to themselves but are still cool to have around. I didn’t know it at the time but the move was probably exactly what I needed. I got more motivated to go to work and actually enjoy the company around me. I also got more involved with what was actually happening at work and have started to learn more about environmental consulting.

So sometimes change is good. Change happens all the time but it is really about how you deal with it that matters. You can sulk and be bitter about the situation and affect the people around you negatively. Or you can take it as a stepping stone to something greater and better and positively influence the people you interact with. Applying really is your choice at the end of the day.

Anyways that is the Kanyadoit change strategy on the triple A concept: Accept, Adapt, Apply. lol I really made it up as I wrote this blog. It worked for me. Hope it works for you. :) lol

Kanya the Remote Sensor

Well since it is lunch time and I feel like making my work sound more exciting than it really is…I thought I would write a blog about it.

So I am a remote sensor. Eek well remote sensing is the collection of information about objects/features without physically touching them. We carry out remote sensing every time we take a picture of someone….our camera captures the response of us based on what we reflect. Yes so you are also a remote sensors too.

But my type of remote sensing is a bit more complicated because instead of photographs I work with images generated from satellites. You are correct, satellites are those things that float around in space. There are a number of satellites that capture different types of information about our earth at different times. Tracker uses satellites to track where your car is a, a GPS uses satellites to provide us with location based information. Some satellites focus on climate others specialise in vegetation and so on. The really great satellites capture great detail spatially (measurement of a pixel – the smaller the pixel size the better) and spectrally (# of bands that the satellite captures information about – the more bands the better). These are the really expensive satellites and are required for exceptional precision and detail….we talking hyperspectral images where you can map what is beneath the ground.

I am currently using Landsat Satellite imagery to produce a basic Landcover map for a couple of African river basins. Landsat spatial resolution is 30m which isn’t the greatest because that is as zoomed in as you can get…30m. However Landsat has a pretty decent spectral resolution of 7 bands which allows you to capture more spectral information like types of vegetation. The other benefit of using Landsat is its affordability as it is freely available on the internet. However for projects such as mine I needed to purchase the imagery because all the images needed to be taken during the same time of the year and I needed them to be in the best condition as possible.
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This job isn’t always easy. It requires good software to process the images, such as Erdas or Envi, which can be very expensive. Also a number of processes need to be achieved before your image can be classified. Now that I have gone through all the stages – like removing the atmospheric effects (Haze and clouds), geometrically correcting each image (so that they actually fit accurately on a map)…ect...I am now classifying the images.

Classification is probably the best part of my job. It would have been ideal if I had been in the field before I had started mapping. But due to budget constrains and the purpose of this map field studies prior to classification wasn’t needed. This is where Google earth becomes very handy as I am able to zoom into areas and confirm features/landcover types much quicker than I would have done in the field. I feel like I am flying around the world to places I have never been, observing cultivated fields, wetlands, rivers, lakes ect. I can imagine what it would be like to be on the ground some areas are just so remote I wonder if people have even touched the land there.
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The benefits of being in my organisation is that I am able to confirm with in-house wetland experts and ecologist about features and landscape patterns that may not be familiar with to me. I need to make sure that the map I produce for the field visit is as accurate as I can get it. Later on this month our field experts will be going into the field to confirm if I got my classes correct. If not …it would be back to the drawing board.
So thats Kanya the remote sensor in a nut shell .


(The images in this blog show a river flowing over a different band of rock type which caused the river to braid). One image is from landsat(top) and the other is google earth (bottom). Notice the differences in resolution. ...google being more detailed.