Meet the Author - Jon Marañón

Jon Marañón (a nom de plume) has lived a remarkable life against which many readers will find themselves measuring their own lives. He came of age in America during the turbulent '60s of Civil Rights marches and opposition to the Vietnam War. He had always felt himself to be a poor fit for the consumerism/materialism, conformity, racism, and environmental destructiveness of his own country. A college psychologist told him he'd have to learn to adjust. Yet, he persisted in seeking a place where, and people with whom, he might fit.

This young, blond, blue-eyed college dropout, this sensitive, idealistic, born naturalist and new-minted environmentalist, would become a Latin American landowner and patrón, roles for which he was profoundly unfit. He tried numerous schemes to make a living off the land - agriculture, cattle raising, growing fruit trees, ecotourism, and tree farming.

As a patrón, he inherited cultural norms and expectations he felt were . . . "un-American." Although his workers were warm, generous, kind, and hard working, his duty to haggle with them over the quality of their work and the wages due them became very stressful. He found himself forced to informally adjudicate their infidelities, quarrels, drunken outbursts, sicknesses, and occasional rampages of machete violence . . . situations that were seriously at odds with his ideal of establishing a harmonious community.

Marañón became a significant observer of both the environmental and social changes in Costa Rica. He was one who stayed in one place, "a witness to something amazing," and has earned the right to tell us what he saw. The last of the hunter-gatherer indigenous people faded deeply into the rain forest and perhaps into extinction. Marañón listened to local elders tell tales about them, and he passes on some of these and other tales to readers.

Marañón fought to halt and turn back the degradation of the environment. For many years, he traveled regularly to the capital, San Jose, and badgered bureaucrats and government officials to take action. Eventually, he played a significant role in establishing protected marine and coastal marine areas such as the Caño Island Biological Reserve and the Ballena Marine National Park. He also helped get Cocos Island removed from the possession of the Ministry of Security and included it in the National Parks Service. Additionally, he has served on a number of government committees and was declared by presidential decree an honorary member of the National Parks Service.

Marañón, almost as a sidelight, has had a long-time fascination with whales and worked with scientists and researchers to establish an entirely new understanding of the migratory habits of Northern and Southern hemisphere humpback whales. At the time of publication of The Gringo's Hawk this research is ongoing.

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