Forester 20 years hence: a call to perform or perish

Twenty first century is witness to nanosecond culture. There shall be only two kinds of managers, the quick and the dead. The natural resource manager has to be quick to comprehend the changing forestry scenario and adopt a proactive management approach rather than reacting to ensuring environmental degradation and ecological insecurity gulping mother Earth at a fast pace. The strategies shift in forest management from traditional forestry management to participatory forest management has ushered an era of change. The new roles for the forester are canopy architect, incentive designer, seed farm manager, land use planner, resource mobilizer and knowledge administrator information facilitator. The role variations are induced by technology, participatory management environment, people centric policies, sustainable development options besides climate change mitigation and adaptation endeavors. It has led the natural resource manager to look at the resources with a different angle altogether. In the recent past, the forester has been put to more challenging roles of a communicator, negotiator, conflict resolver, motivator and coordinator apart from providing technical guidance to the developmental and conservation responsibilities. The responsibilities of forester also include evolving developmental interventions to attain poverty alleviation, food security, ecological security, biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development, socio-economic empowerment of tribes and rural poor at a faster pace. 'What is to be achieved' part is well-defined whereas 'How to achieve' is big a challenge in the present day context. How to design incentives to mobilize people's support? How to sustain the flow of benefits to keep incentives intact? How to make the delivery system as well as recipient systems mature? How to aim at sustainable development through effective recycling? How to improve the productivity of eco-systems? How to handle the challenges associated with climate change mitigation and adaptation measure? The appropriate solutions may lie in recycling, increase in productivity, effective extension methodology and establishing linkages. Innovation incentive designs, effective linkages, partnership with stakeholders, effective monitoring, training and awareness are necessary for sustaining the benefits. The paper attempts to visualize the changes in a forester's role in the next 20 years and calls for necessary changes in forestry education and training in the future.