a group of poachers in Zimbabwe had a radical transformation. They were arrested and sentenced to serve as caretakers in a national park. This is the story of John Kasaona, a former poacher who became a conservationist and is now working to protect endangered species. John Kasaona was born in the late $1960$s in a small village near Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. Growing up$,$ he was exposed to the harsh realities of poverty and was forced to drop out of school in his early teens to help support his family. He found work as a poacher, illegally hunting and trapping animals in the national park for food and income.In $1991,$ Kasaona and several other poachers were arrested by park rangers and sentenced to serve as caretakers in the very same park they had once ravaged. The sentence was part of a new conservation effort by the Zimbabwean government, which aimed to rehabilitate poachers and turn them into protectors of the land.