Colin Apse

Colin Apse specializes in freshwater ecosystem conservation and sustainable water management solutions and has been at The Nature Conservancy since 1999. Colin has led TNC’s Africa freshwater program development since the early days of The Nature Conservancy’s investment on the continent.  This includes conservation and sustainable development programs in Gabon’s Ogooué River Basin, Lake Tanganyika, and the Okavango Basin. Colin leads TNC’s Africa Source Water Protection Strategy and helped develop the Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund project which has received global attention for its public-private partnership approach to improve water security for the city of Nairobi by working collaboratively with agricultural communities upstream.  Colin’s team is now working with partners to support Water Fund expansion across Africa including Cape Town, South Africa and Freetown, Sierra Leone. Colin’s first decade with the Conservancy was focused in the Eastern United States on developing strategies and policy approaches that balance human water use and environmental water needs, such as fish passage and adequate flow, at state and river basin scales. Colin received a B.A. from Duke University and a master’s degree in environmental management focused on aquatic ecology from Yale University. He lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.