Why does my terminal show later versions of npm under 'current' when I have installed older packages, as shown under 'required'?

Question

I'm creating a React project and wish to use node v16.20.2 and npm 8.19.4. When I install this version in my bash terminal it seems to go through OK, but while installing other packages I receive the following message:

npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '[email protected]',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v20.11.0', npm: '10.2.4' }

Does this mean the versions under 'required' are not actually installed or is something else going on here?

I'm working on Gitpod so I've tried stop and restarting the workspace after installing npm and node.js. I've tried using nvm to solve this but to no avail