Jose Calvo, a key part of the Programa de Biosensibilidad Marino (Marine Bioawareness Program) as well as the ACG itself, and a blossoming bird photographer, died in a late night motorcycle accident near his hometown on June 1. He was 28.
Jose was quiet. He was good with kids. He knew how to look and listen in the forest, how to learn from what he saw. And he knew profoundly how to help.
He was a strong rural youth hired by the ACG Programa de Sectores to be an Encargado de Sitio (Sector Caretaker), in charge of an ACG Sector headquarters station and the thousands of hectares surrounding it. It was when he was assigned to Sector Murcielago that he first observed Maria Marta Chavarria’s children’s Marine Bioawareness programs in the Murcielago campground, and joined in.
As an Encargado, he had day-in day-out access to ACG forests and the Sector Murcielago coast. He was assigned to many different Sectors over the years and related closely to the parataxonomists at work there as well as his fellow ACG staff.
He worked with Maria Marta and the children of Cuajiniquil on his days off. As a self-made biologist, he was mentored by Maria and by parataxonomists and by the nature around him.
Technology came late into Jose’s life, and from the first camera with a good zoom donated to Los Trogones last year by the State of Minnesota, we could begin to see what Jose – still quiet, still in the background – could see.
He has left behind a year’s collection of extraordinary photos, and a gaping hole.
-----------------------
