The White River Fisheries Partnership: A Template for Cooperative Fisheries Management in Arkansas and Missouri

The White River Fisheries Partnership (WRFP) was formed as an interstate and interagency partnership along the Missouri-Arkansas border beginning in 2001. Reservoir resource managers, interested in continuing efforts to enhance sport fish populations in the White River reservoirs, came together through the partnership as a natural extension of their earlier efforts to coordinate fisheries management in shared waters along the border. The partnership originally included representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bass Pro Shops and Tracker Marine, Inc. and members of their professional angling staffs, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Southwestern Power Administration, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, the Missouri Division of Tourism, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. Other local and regional stakeholders have participated in the partnership as it has developed. The primary purpose of the WRFP has been to establish common and achievable objectives designed to enhance recreational fishing using opportunities developed through a federal, state, and private partnership. A common set of objectives and expectations has been developed and is presented in this paper. Communication between biological, technical, and administrative elements in each partnering organization has improved over the years. As public interests and expectations in regard to reservoirs and their tailwaters change over time, the partnering agencies will revisit strategies and adjust their efforts to address these changes. Multifaceted collaboration efforts such as the WRFP require time and long-term commitments from the partners if they are to continue to be successful and reach their established objectives.