Francisco (Paco) Javier León González

Four Seasons Tenure

• Since 2021
• First Four Seasons Assignment: Current

Employment History

• Colegio Cervantes Costa Rica Bachillerato; Bosque Los Colomos; Area de Protección de Flora y Fauna La Primavera; Fundación de la Costa de Jalisco, AC; Centro Escolar José Maria Morelos y Pavón; Parque Nacional Arrecifes de Xcalak - CONANP; Parque Nacional Nevado de Colima

Education

• Bachelors Degree, Biology, Centro Universitaio de Cienclas Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Universidad de Guadalajara

Birthplace

• Guadalajara, Mexico

Languages Spoken

• Spanish, English

Recognising guests by name is a pillar of Four Seasons anticipatory service. Francisco Javier León González, better known as “Paco,” manages it just fine, though as the resident Biologist of Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo, Mexico his focus is more on arrivals with four legs, feathers, and fins.

Recruited to the Resort’s opening team, González’s role is to work with the existing team on the Reserve to monitor the natural wonders onsite while revealing them to guests. He leads Exploration Walks to welcome new staff members, and Discovery Walks for guests through the jungle and along the Pacific coast, opening eyes to animal tracks, ears to calls and birdsongs, noses to the scents of flowers, and minds to the life cycles and local cultural uses of vegetation across the property’s private peninsula. González is involved with the Resort’s Discovery Centre, a setting along the oceanfront with informative displays and interactive activities to reveal the biodiversity on land and beneath the waves to travellers, particularly families.

The Discovery Centre envisioned by the Resort's ownership and directed by the Director of Scientific Communication of the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) since 2008 Dr. Carlos Enrique Galindo Leal is a place where González and his team can share their collective knowledge on the region and its biodiversity. “The Discovery Centre is available for guests to visit on their own, as well as a starting or ending point for Discovery Walks, foraging adventures, hikes and more. It’s a big complimentary addition to the reserve and to what I’m doing here – connecting guests to nature.”

Tropical deciduous forest grows near the beach, while tropical sub-deciduous plants take root around the Resort and the golf course, he says. “Things vary month-to-month between the seasons on the Reserve, so there is always a lot of change for guests to see in the landscape. I find the change of seasons to be exceptionally exciting, as it is a time when the forest is alive and there is activity everywhere.”

There is an incredible slew of creatures that call the 1,214-hectare (3,000-acre) natural reserve surrounding the Resort home along the pristine private peninsula on the Pacific coast of Mexico. “We have an orange-breasted bunting of 10-to-12 centimetres, turquoise in the back, yellow and orange in the chest,” says González of one of a baker’s dozen of endemic bird species he has identified and makes efforts to study and protect onsite. “They’re very flamboyant. People can spot them from 100 metres away.”

There are mammals such as white-tailed deer and white-nosed coati, amphibians such as Mexican giant tree frog and Smith's pygmy robber frog; bugs and insects including butterflies and moths; and reptiles such as the western spiney-tailed iguana and the clouded anole, both endemic to the reserve. If you catch González at his desk, a rare scene, you might have a look at his “jar of creatures” – a collection he's been nurturing since he landed in Tamarindo.

“We are very focused on reforestation efforts, weighing in on plants and trees to enhance biodiversity in the forest,” says González. “Our mission is to share nature to protect nature – helping future generations learn how to 'rewild' the land to preserve all the endemic fauna, flora and animal species.” Gonzaléz also works with the culinary team overseeing the sustainable farm, Rancho Ortego, looking after bees and supporting other rewilding tactics all while ensuring the best fruit and vegetable species grow onsite for the Resort's seasonal menus.

Born and raised inland in Guadalajara, Gonzaléz started off in computing. “But once I got to engineering school, I realised I didn’t like it,” he remembers. “I wanted to study life instead.” Switching schools, he specialised in marine biology, penning a thesis on marine worms before realising that he didn’t want to specialise in one particular species. More appealing, he thought, was to know “a few things about many things” and to find outlets to spread his knowledge.

“Here in Mexico, biology students get to travel to other places during their last semester, and I looked for a natural region along the coast. I really liked the idea of managing a protected area where I could nurture things like tourism and fisheries and produce educational materials to share.”

He fell in love with birds, he says, studying their diverse components while monitoring protected areas they inhabit along with a wealth of other wildlife for conservation. He also produced research, and plenty of it, leading and contributing to papers on everything from bat diversity and abundance on Nevado de Colima to queen conch (Stombus gigas) repopulation on Reserva de la Biosfera Banco Chinchorro.

Then around 2010, while working on an avian-centric project in the Costalegre region of Jalisco, Mexico, a scientific advisor approached Gonzaléz about surveying plants and animals that inhabit the coastal nature reserve on which the property now sits. “He offered me the opportunity to study as well as to educate, sharing what I found with school children in nearby towns.”

The research Gonzaléz compiled proved quite useful for conservation throughout the area. Several years later, in 2020, when Four Seasons announced plans for a new Resort with a Discovery Centre at the Reserve, Gonzaléz thought he'd be the perfect candidate as he really knew the region and its biodiversity.  

Not surprisingly, Gonzaléz likes to spend his off hours in the great outdoors but finds things to enjoy wherever he is. “When I’m in the city, I like music and books. When I’m here, the one thing I really need to do every day is walk on the beach.” He doesn’t watch TV or fiddle on the computer during his free time: not when there are so many other things to attract his attention. “I’ve been doing nature photography for more than a decade – mostly birds and insects and flowers – and about five years ago I discovered low-speed photography for the night sky. Now, I wait for sun to set every day so I can photograph the night sky after I take my nightly swim in the warm tranquil Pacific.”