Richelle Winkler: “I hope my students can give back to the broader community too”

The way Richelle Winkler arrived to Monteverde was non unusual; a lot of our affiliated researchers come here on their sabbaticals, looking for an experience in Costa Rica – which is known for being one of the Latin American countries most focused on sustainable practices and conservation.

“The reason I decided to come to Costa Rica is that I have two friends that are Costa Ricans, who are also colleagues,” explains Winkler who, before her sabbatical, came to the country in 2017 to visit and see if she and her husband really wanted to settle here for a while.

“When I was looking for places in Costa Rica to come, someone recommended to come to Monteverde and see; and also, when I was looking for places where I could be affiliated with, I found the Monteverde Institute,” adds Winkler who, in the end, decided to came back with her whole family from January to August of 2018.

For Winkler, coming to Monteverde was a new experience but, at the same time, it didn’t feel that far from home.

“I’m from Michigan, which is in the most Northern part of USA, and I work in a university called Michigan Technological University, that has about 7,000 students and it’s in a very rural part of Michigan. It’s very remote and very far from the city and I think it’s actually kind of a lot like Monteverde because it’s four hours from any big city and there’s no big roads to go there and we have a lot of tourism,” describes the researcher.

“I discovered that a lot of people who comes from the US, or Canada or Europe, for them what they love about Monteverde is the fact that is a small town in the forest, and it feels very peaceful, those kind of things… and all of that was true for me too, but that’s the same as home for me, is the same way,d” says Winkler.

As mentioned, Winkler came here with the purpose of being a Monteverde Institute affiliated researcher; and she, being a professional on Human Population – also known as Demography – realized this community was the perfect place to study the interactions between the people with the environment.  

“I know most of the scientists that come here mostly study the forest, and the animals, and the plants… but I was here to study the interactions between people with their natural environment and the impacts they have in different ways… especially when people think they are coming because they think they love the natural world and they want to do good environmental things,” says Winkler, who adds that the issue is that “sometimes we have impacts that we don’t think about.”

“That’s what I wanted to better understand, especially from all the people who come here from richest countries,” states the researcher, whose primary source of data was the Costa Rican census information contained in the Central American Population Center, at the Universidad de Costa Rica.

“I used that census data to look at people who moved here from rich countries and what their consumption habits are… do they have cars, do they have hot water heaters, do they have flat screen tv’s? Cause I was really interested in energy use and how much energy each of us uses in our home; and I wanted to see if people who moved here use a lot more than people who are form here,” adds Winkler.

“And I found out that yes, they do! But not only that: their habits spread to other people around them. So local Costa Ricans who lived around people from rich countries also start to use more energy (…) So I found out that really interesting, because it’s spreading habits around the World,” determines the researcher.

Winkler points out that her investigation was using data from the whole country, what allowed her to compare Monteverde to other places in Costa Rica.

“In some of the areas down at the beach the people who moved there from rich countries use more electricity. Especially hot water heaters, which I think is a funny one because it’s hot at the beach, right?” claims the researcher, adding that “the people at the beach, and most of the people from rich countries, have a water heater” while in Monteverde it is not that common, despite being a colder place.

“Same with cars. All people at the beach have more cars… so there are differences within the country, and I think the kind of people who come from rich countries and where they chose to live here in Costa Rica says a lot about who they are and if they want to keep the same habits they have in USA, Canada or Europe, or if they want to live more like Costa Ricans,” emphasizes Winkler, who thinks a lot of these people “wants to take care of the environment” but maybe “they don’t understand, they don’t see the impact, and they still want the same kind of house and the same kind of life that they had in USA, but just in a new environment.”

“What I think is that the people who come to Monteverde, a lot of them are scientists and they understand more the impact of the decisions that they have than some of the people who go to other places.”  

“It was really important to live here for a while”

So, Winkler ended up living in Monteverde as an MVI affiliated researcher for eight months; however, her experience in the community went beyond all the data she was collecting from the Costa Rican census.

“I always try to do my work in collaboration with people who study the natural world, because I think we need to work together… because it is not just about what is going on in the forest or on the planet or the animals or the climate system and all of that… the problem is that the people are impacting that and, in the end, impact us. And we rely in the natural world to survive.”

In order to do that, Winkler took the plunge and decided to get involve with some of the programs the Monteverde Institute offers, including the ones that involve the community in some way.

“I wanted to better understand what is going on in the natural world here, so I just could know better for myself what those impacts are. I was able to go with Luisa and collect bugs for the Adopt-a-Stream Program, and talk to her about the research she is doing about water quality; and I was able to go out with Debra and do mist netting with birds, and see what is going on with the reforestation projects and see how those kinds of birds are finding the places where they are reforesting,” explains Winkler.

“I was also able to go out and see the tourists in the area and learn about the cloud forest and how it functions… Go into San Gerardo station and learn about the Children’s Eternal Rainforest… So, I think all of that was really good context, because I needed to know these things in order to be able to understand the bigger picture of how it all fits together,”.

“I had all the data from the census, which was a very good data, I was really lucky (…) It was really important to live here for a while, because I could not just have the census data at home and do the same work – I wouldn’t know what questions to ask or even know that having a hot water heater could be a strange thing,” states Winkler.

“I needed to know more how people live here, and I wouldn’t know the differences between the countries, the cultural differences from place to place, and I wouldn’t know which places to look at. So, all of that context helped me a lot to better understand what was happening.”  

“I hope my students can give back to the broader community too”

“I wanted to do this research and I wanted to improve my Spanish, but I also wanted to build more relationships with people here, so I could start a study abroad program with my university, to bring students. And that’s what I did, working with the Institute and also with Fern,” says Winkler.

This interview was conducted during the Michigan Technological University program at the MVI. The Michigan Tech study abroad program were supposed to come on 2020, but it had to be canceled because of the pandemic.

“It’s an almost six-week program in Costa Rica and the students are mostly here in Monteverde, living in homestays and taking some classes here at the Institute; they are taking classes in Spanish; in Costa Rican culture; in population, health and environment, and sustainability. They come from different majors, but half of them are majoring in sustainability,” explains professor Winkler, “since sustainability is a very interdisciplinary kind of thing, is really helpful to have people with backgrounds in different areas to come together.”

During their visit, the students also did a group project with the Adopt-a-Stream program, that included an updated guide – that later on it will be part of an app – of the invertebrates that can be found in the Monteverde streams, and can be used as indicators of water quality.

“They are also analyzing the data that Luisa has been collecting, and they are making some maps about where the data is collected and what kind of findings we are seeing, and how it is changing over time. We are trying to look at questions about how the density of population or agriculture are impacting the water quality. There are some changes with COVID, because there were not so many people or traffic, and the students will be giving a presentation about that to the community.”   

Winkler states that she was nervous about bringing students, because it was her first time doing it; however, she says the group did great and, having to walk from the homestays to their classes at MVI everyday, that allowed them to “really see the community.”

“They are seeing the community… they even know the dogs! They see the same people on their way, so I think the walk helps them to see the bigger community and not to come straight here and just be here at the Institute.”, comments the researcher, who assures that for her it was also important “to have the students live with families, in homestays, because that brings money to the local community and the families, but also the students build relationships and they get to know people and get to see what life is really like.”

“I hope they give back then to the broader community too… That’s really my goal too, that they are taking what they are learning from here and going back to the US, but that they are bringing something, too. That’s why we want them to participate in projects that matter here too,” states Winkler.

“I love the idea behind this place as a community center”

Winkler affirms that the main reason why she decided to come to the MVI is that “it is not just focused on bringing students and education, but also on community activities and supporting the broader community in terms of health, economic development, and environmental projects.”

“I love the idea behind this place is as a community center, not just an education center or a research center (…) I love it here, that’s why I wanted to keep coming back and bring the students, you know… I thought, when I first came here, that I wanted to share it with other people,” she reflects.

“The Institute itself is such a positive space; is pushing people to learn and understand very important problems and issues that are facing us as a society, but also is doing it in a very human way… and encourages people, and is thinking about the solutions, and it has a lot of hope and makes people feel good.”  

“A lot of times, when you study environmental issues, it’s really easy to just be sad. But I think the Institute is doing a good job of not just knowing what the problems are, but thinking about how can we fix them, how can we do it together as a community, to start creating some potential solutions and examples about how we can do better and how we can build those examples into the broader community and learn from people and what they are doing.”

She adds, “at the same time, there’s such a friendly atmosphere here; everybody seems to care about you and they want to make sure you are supported as a person. Build those connections and make time for that… it is not just work, work, work like you see in the USA. Having a coffee break to talk to one another, and spend time exploring, and falling in love with the place,” concludes Winkler.