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Colin Apse

Freshwater Conservation Advisor

Contact Information

E-mail: capse@TNC.ORG

Brief Biography

“How we manage our scarce freshwater resources globally to meet rapidly growing human needs—while also protecting biodiversity and critical ecosystem services of lakes and rivers—is the environmental challenge of the 21st century.”

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Colin Apse has over a decade of experience working on freshwater ecosystem conservation and sustainable water management solutions. Currently acting as freshwater conservation advisor, he focuses on the Conservancy’s Africa Program and various U.S. programs.

In Africa, Colin supports fisheries and watershed conservation efforts on Lake Tanganyika as part of an integrated human and environmental health project focused around Mahale Mountains National Park in Tanzania. He also leads the scoping and development of water fund projects in Kenya and Zambia, designed to deliver payments for watershed stewardship by communities upstream of major water users.

Much of his work in the United States focuses on developing strategies and policy approaches that balance human water use and environmental water needs at state and river basin scales. Colin co-leads the Conservancy’s North American environmental flows policy strategy and has served on technical advisory committees on sustainable water management reform in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania and in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Colin led the Northeast Aquatic Connectivity Assessment Project, a collaborative across thirteen states to prioritize opportunities for dam removal or mitigation based on ecological benefits.

In recent global work, Colin co-led the development of a conservation blueprint for the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia, now being used as the basis for a major conservation and development collaboration between the Conservancy and the Colombian government. He also serves as an advisor for the Conservancy’s Great Rivers Partnership, which seeks to advance integrated river basin management across the globe through targeted investment in collaborative river basin projects and facilitation of an international exchange network.

Colin received a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a master’s in environmental management focused on aquatic ecology from Yale University. He is based in Portland, Maine.
 

Colin Apse

Freshwater Conservation Advisor

Read Colin Apse's Full Biography

Read Colin Apse's Full Biography

Read Colin Apse's Full Biography