Editor's note: CNN's Eye On series takes you to a different
country each month. In October we visit Namibia highlighting the
country's best and brightest people, plus framing its pressing
issues in a global context. (CNN) -- In Namibia, the question of
who owns the wildlife has often been fraught with difficulties.
In 1967 -- one year after the United Nations demanded South
Africa leave Namibia -- the ruling South African apartheid
government gave ownership of the local fauna to (predominantly)
white landowners. Shortly afterwards, the indigenous Namibians
were pushed out onto the formerly protected Kaokoveld wildlife
reserve, where they were given a strip of land on which to farm.
For those living on the communal lands, poaching springbok and
zebra was often seen as the only way a family could stay fed.
When John Kasaona was a young boy, his father did what many men
did at the time; he poached. "He used to catch everything from
springbok to lion," recalls Kasaona. "There was constant food in
our family." The