Big Sky Journal Round Up: Non Profit Spotlight: Flathead Rivers Alliance
Excerpt from Big Sky Journal Fly Fishing 2023 digital
[February 2, 2023]
in Fly Fishing 2023 | Round Up | Written by Jessica Byerly
SOME OF FLATHEAD RIVERS ALLIANCE’S RIVER AMBASSADORS PAUSE FOR A PHOTO DURING SPRING TRAINING. PHOTOGRAPHED BY SHEENA PATE
In 2019, diverse stakeholders including agencies, guides, outfitters, landowners, businesses, and community members gathered to form the Flathead Rivers Alliance, a nonprofit organization that has since led collaborative efforts to safeguard the future of Montana’s Flathead Wild and Scenic River system. The organization’s mission is deceptively simple: Support and enhance the outstandingly remarkable values of the three forks of the Flathead, which are defined by the National Park Service as recreation, scenery, wildlife, botany, geology, fisheries, water quality, ethnography, and history. And that’s where the simplicity ends. Responsible ecological management and the inevitable balancing act to support and sustain the delicate river ecosystem amidst escalating use and visitation is a complex cooperative challenge. But for Flathead Rivers Alliance Watershed Coordinator Sheena Pate, the Flathead Rivers Alliance team, their community partners, and the hundreds of volunteers who share in the vision of a healthy Flathead in perpetuity, that challenge is worth the fight.
AN ANGLER ON THE FLATHEAD WILD AND SCENIC RIVER HOLDS A NATIVE WESTSLOPE CUTTHROAT TROUT. MONTANA FISH, WILDLIFE & PARKS
Big Sky Journal: Why was the Flathead Rivers Alliance created and what is its mission?
Sheena Pate: Usage and visitation on the 219-mile Flathead River has dramatically increased over the last decade without a sole dedicated organization to boost responsible recreation education and stewardship. Additionally, regional resource-management agencies have been increasingly challenged in their efforts to mitigate river-system threats: invasive aquatic species, climate impacts, a host of recreation related pressures, and water quality.
We know that we can’t do this alone, and that there are many other organizations and individuals doing great work for the waters of the Flathead. That’s why we believe in the power of a collective vision, of a resilient and healthy river ecosystem fostering a community where people interact respectfully and responsibly. Flathead Rivers Alliance has positioned itself as a facilitator of communication, discussion, and public forum on issues surrounding the Flathead headwaters and has become an instrumental partner with Flathead National Forest, Glacier National Park, and Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks (MT FWP) — the river’s cooperative managers.
BSJ: Why is your focus specifically on the Flathead River system, and what area does that include?
Pate: Less than half of one percent of the nation’s rivers are protected under the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Montana has approximately 169,829 miles of river, of which only 388 miles are designated as wild and scenic — approximately two-tenths of one percent of the state’s river miles. Designated rivers must be managed for free-flowing conditions, outstandingly remarkable values, and outstanding water quality. The Flathead River system is one of Montana’s three designated Wild and Scenic Rivers and spans 219 miles, draining approximately 4,369 square miles in northwestern….
