Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Profile

WHO WE ARE and WHERE WE’RE GOING h

An employees’ guide to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ purpose, beliefs, and vision

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ccasionally in life we come across admirable people—teachers, coaches, community leaders—who are particularly wellgrounded. These individuals know themselves and their purpose in life. Their values and beliefs are solid.

As a department, FWP is a lot like those people. We’re an agency grounded in timeless and powerful core beliefs and values. We are a resilient, unified organization that can handle whatever challenges or changing conditions come our way because we know who we are and where we’re going.

It’s important for FWP employees to learn why this organization exists and what it stands for. By understanding FWP’s foundation, you can see why the agency continues to be a national conservation leader. And you’ll recognize how your own work fits into the larger picture of this department and its contributions to Montana.

It’s an honor as employees to be entrusted with stewarding resources that mean so much to this state. Doing this effectively requires individual, professional, and scientific integrity. It calls for us to bring people together, and to be inclusive in how we provide opportunities to experience and appreciate Montana’s outdoors. It means we must balance private interests with diverse public needs, the needs of future generations, and the health of the fish, state parks, and wildlife.

These actions build the partnerships and public support necessary for us to succeed.

Working with the public, FWP employees across the state have evaluated why our agency exists, where it’s headed, and how it’s viewed by the people it serves. That work has produced two nationally recognized booklets provided to every employee: the FWP Vision and Guide and the FWP Brand Book. Read these documents and familiarize yourself with them if you haven’t already. They explain our role as stewards across Montana’s vast landscape.

This document you are reading ties those booklets together with the department’s mission to produce a clear way of understanding what we as an agency stand for and the solid values that guide our work. A companion booklet, Montana’s Public Trust Responsibility, more fully explains the concept and origins of the public trust and FWP’s public trust responsibilities.

The FWP Mission: Our job Almost since statehood, Montanans have recognized that fish, wildlife, and state parks would deteriorate or disappear without stewardship. In 1901 they created an agency, today known as FWP, responsible for managing and conserving those resources.

FWP’s mission statement, set in state statutes, summarizes why this agency exists.

It has changed slightly over the years, but the basic premise has never varied from today’s version:

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, through its employees and citizen commission and board, provides for the stewardship of the fish, wildlife, parks, and recreational resources of Montana, while contributing to the quality of life for present and future generations.

FWP’s 4 Core Beliefs: How we do our job At the center of FWP’s work are four core beliefs: balance, inclusion, integrity, and opportunity. These principles were identified by FWP employees and a broad representation of the public as the four things the department does when it’s at its best: BALANCE: As stewards of the public trust, our job is to create balance through sound management and science (both natural and social). That means weighing the needs of different user groups (including future users) and balancing human use with the needs of wildlife, state parks, and fish resources.

The Public Trust The key word in FWP’s mission is “stewardship.” Here’s why: Montana’s clean, scenic, and wildlife-rich outdoors are protected by many laws and regulations like the federal Clean Water Act and the Montana Stream Protection Act; landmark documents like the Montana Constitution; and guiding principles such as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Underpinning these and other efforts to secure and steward water, wildlife, and other natural resources is what’s known as the “public trust.”

The public trust concept derives from the long-held societal belief that certain natural resources are so important to everyone that they should be off limits to individual ownership, or privatization, and that it’s the government’s responsibility to steward these public resources for the fair and equitable enjoyment of current and future generations.

Montana’s rivers, water, fish, wildlife, cultural resources, and state parks are public resources held “in trust” by the state, which acts as the “trustee”—the entity responsible for prudently managing the trust. FWP is the trust “manager,” and the people of Montana are the trust’s “beneficiaries.”

Under the public trust, it’s FWP’s job to protect and maintain these public resources. Our involvement ensures that this work is done by professionals— biologists, game wardens, park managers, technology specialists, maintenance crews, and others—who all act in the public interest.

Stewarding the public trust and balancing the needs of its many beneficiaries requires FWP employees to sit down with a wide variety of stakeholders and respectfully and intentionally listen to their perspectives. By hearing each other, we can find common ground and work together for a better future.

Photos left to right: Pat Clayton/Eric Engbretson Underwater Photography; Gary Beeler; Montana State Parks

INCLUSION: FWP brings people together to discuss, debate, fund, and learn about outdoor resources and experiences. In FWP settings, people meet to create solutions to public trust challenges, like our ever-expanding grizzly bear populations. We need even more of that inclusion. For FWP to succeed, we want everyone who cares about the outdoors to join with us in caring for the outdoors.

INTEGRITY: By maintaining our professional and scientific integrity; the integrity of the land, water, wildlife, and cultural and historical resources we steward; and the integrity of the Montana outdoor experience, we help keep Montana a place of beauty, wonder, and opportunity.

OPPORTUNITY OUTSIDE: Many people live in and visit this state to take advantage of our abundant wildlife, fish, and state parks and easy access to those resources.

FWP both taps and nurtures that passion for Montana’s outdoor experiences. We create new opportunities and facilitate traditional uses, building public support and cooperation that help us achieve our mission. That’s the logic behind the tagline: The Outside Is In Us All.

The FWP Vision: What it looks like when we do our job well The FWP vision statement defines the agency’s future desired outcome and clarifies its essential role in making Montana the state it is and will continue to be.

Montana is a place where people have abundant opportunities to connect1 with the world-renowned fish, wildlife, and state parks resources that define our state, and where a responsive2 and relevant3 FWP has the resiliency4 and public support5 it needs to lead6 the way in making sure these resources remain an essential part7 of Montana’s culture, economy, and high quality of life.

1 Interact with the natural world how they choose, via hunting, hiking, fishing, camping, boating, or otherwise 2 Prepared, forward-thinking, agile, and ready to respond to challenges 3 In tune with contemporary issues, management strategies, and research

4 Rooted in its foundational values so it can withstand change 5 Reliant on the engagement and support of beneficiaries 6 Continue to spearhead Montana’s conservation movement 7 Our work makes a better Montana

Finally This, fellow employee, is what FWP is all about. Let the information here guide your understanding of the agency and your important role in it. Let it inspire confidence that, like a ponderosa pine, our agency has deep, strong roots, and the flexibility and resilience to withstand even the worst storms. These attributes keep us grounded in our core beliefs, solid values, and a cohesive, shared vision. They enable us to maintain our tradition of innovative and successful stewardship.

And because we know who we are and where we are going, we will continue to be able to honor and protect the public trust today and far into the future. n

Produced in-house by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Copyright ©2020. All rights reserved.

This document was printed at state expense. For information on the cost of the publication, call Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks at (406) 444-2545.

Grizzly photo above: Donald M. Jones