In-House research 2.0

In-house research

The Monteverde Institute supports applied research projects and partnerships that advance our mission of sustainable living at the local and global level.

Adopt a stream

Our goals are to monitore water quality in a long-term basis with the help of students of local higschool; promote awareness about the ecology and health of aquatic ecosystems; and promote community participation in the protection, conservation and water resourses management.

How we do it?

Every two months we take samples at 7 sites in the Monteverde área (see map).
Physico-chimical parameters collected are: water temperatura, disolved oxygen, conductivity, pH, turbidity, coliforms and nutrientes.
Macroinvertebrates (aquatic insects) are used as bioindicators to determine wáter quality. Students or volunteers identify them to family level, and learn which groups depending on their tolerance to pollution indicate good, regular or bad quality.

Bird Monitoring

Our goal is to support research and education that helps us advance our mission to promote social, ecological and economic sustainability; provide unique learning opportunities that allow in-depth participation in community environmentally based initiatives; and collect and share scientific information relevant to local and global conservation efforts.

Research Projects

Collect information of the neartic neotropical migratory birds in their non-breeding season to understand their full anual cycle ecology,in collaboration with The lnstitute for Bird Populations.
Collect information of the neotropical resident birds in the Crandell Reserve.
Educate about bird ecology and conservation.
Document how the integrity and functionality (ecological services) of the forest has been recovered in habitats with different ages of hove been reforested.
Educate about habitat restoration.

Station with antenas for the automated detection of animals marked with radio transmitters, located in collaboration with the Santa Elena Reserve in its observation tower. This station is part of the Motus (Wildlife Tracking System) program led Bird Studies Canada to facilitate research and education on the ecology and conservation of migratoy animals, such as the Neotropical Migratory birds.

Camera traps

Our goal is to support research and education that helps us advance our mission to promote social, ecological and economic sustainability; provide unique learning opportunities that allow in-depth participation in community environmentally based initiatives; and collect and share scientific informaction relevant to local and global conservation efforts.

Research Projects

Collect information of the neartic neotropical migratory birds in their non-breeding season to understand their full anual cycle ecology,in collaboration with The lnstitute for Bird Populations.
Collect information of the neotropical resident birds in the Crandell Reserve.
Educate about bird ecology and conservation.
Document how the integrity and functionality (ecological services) of the forest has been recovered in habitats with different ages of hove been reforested.
Educate about habitat restoration.

Campus sustainability

The Monteverde Institute’s 32 acre campus is located in the heart of the Monteverde community, adjacent to the historic Monteverde Cheese Factory. The campus backs up to hundreds of acres of lush, protected cloud forest. The foot print for classrooms and administrative office is intentionaly kept small and the buildings themselves incorporate the best building practices for sustainability in our tropical climate including treatment of grey water and rain water, use of biodegradable products in our kitchens and restrooms, use of high efficacy and available lighting, composting and recycling.

Community survey

In a collaborative effort, the Monteverde Institute and the Monteverde Community Fund decided to develop a survey to help to evaluate social economical needs of the cantón of Monteverde, from the perspective of different households. This included questions that evaluate quantitative data, as well of perceptions of the communities.

This survey took place at the beginning of 2022 and the idea is to replicate the survey every two to five years to evaluate how the community is changing in time.

The study is an important tool to understand different perspectives from the different communities of the area, as the social economic conditions change within the different communities and so do the needs, and this will allow different organizations to be able to focus their energies on what is currently happening.

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