April Sansom
Executive Director
April holds a PhD in Environment and Resources from the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. April’s dissertation focused on the intersection of community-based conservation and rural development and how these disciplines can be combined to empower local people to be stewards of their own landscape.
April holds a M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development, also from the Nelson Institute. For this degree, her research focused on women’s groups in rural Bolivia and their participation in natural resource management decision-making.
Before graduate school, April lived in the Philippines for over three years, first as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer and then as a Community Organizer for the Philippines program of Conservation International. April led environmental education programs for a local non-profit organization, and she worked with an indigenous group of people on Coron Island that had just received legal rights over their ancestral land and water. She coordinated a conservation enterprise project, which focused on the processing of cashews by the local people.
April has a B.S. degree in Wildlife Ecology from the Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences Department of Texas A&M University.
Before coming to Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve as Executive Director, April most recently served as Executive Director of an international community-based conservation organization based in Wisconsin.