Moving the Paradigm From Stakeholders to Beneficiaries in Wildlife Management

Wildlife management is evolving in many ways including adaptation of philosophy and practices to contemporary ideas about governance of wildlife as public trust resources. Inherent to good governance is citizen engagement, especially regarding who is engaged and to what ends management efforts are directed. Two decades ago, the profession was encouraged to shift from a client orientation (i.e., a narrow focus on people who pay for services and products) to a stakeholder orientation (i.e., any people affected by or affecting wildlife or its management). We believe that it is time again to broaden thinking about the related questions: wildlife management for whom and for what? We argue that management needs to shift slightly from a stakeholder orientation to a beneficiary orientation. This shift may be less challenging than the earlier call for change but nevertheless has implications for practices of public engagement and for objectives and outcomes of wildlife management that bring the enterprise into better alignment with the expectations of public trust resource management.