Chapter 10: Creating The Future

• Trends In Agricultural Education
• The Responsible Response
• Relationships Between MDCs and LDCs
• A Designer Future
• Prophets And Profits

This final Chapter brings together the imperative of education for increased food production and the need to increase environmental consciousness of students, industry and the public. It suggests that a the future role for natural resource education will be better planned than simply predicted.

The chapters of this book have traced the problems of natural resource management, the imperatives of agricultural production associated with rising human population and poverty, and the need for attitudinal shifts to the environment among the community and educators. The current roles of higher and vocational education and institutions in LDCs, and the associated influence of major international development agencies such as the World Bank, have been contrasted with the general shifts occurring in MDCs. The influence of organizations such as the World Bank and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research in supporting a visionary approach to natural resource management is needed now and into the future. Likewise, the continuing separation of extension from education and narrowly defining extension as the transferring of research results unnecessarily limits the efficiency of natural resource management education systems. New technologies allow new approaches which overcome historical inequities with respect to access to knowledge and learning. Creating new learning environments is the challenge and responsibility of educators in natural resource management fields. And so we arrive at this final chapter in which it is customary to bind such thoughts together - this is done through Figure 10.1 and through the following discussion.

These streams of thought are bound together through a planned or created future. A created future varies from that of a predicted future to which those involved in education must adjust. It is predicated on the assumption that those involved in education delivery and management have sufficient influence on the future to be able to create a scenario far more beneficial than simply predicting external trends and reacting to them. To understand this approach, some major underlying trends bear reiteration.

Trends In Agricultural Education

Agricultural education is selected as a logical precursor to and major component of future natural resource management education. This choice is based on the observation that agriculture and its related fields of forestry and national park management comprise the majority of terrestrial managers. Trends in the field include:

• a decreasing interest in agricultural and related education as distinct from other fields of education
  
• an apparent increasing appreciation of natural resource management as a bona fide approach to intervention in the environment
  
• a continuing increase in demand for food requiring further intensification of agriculture and knowledge on production and environmental and social sciences
  
• an increase in interest in protecting the environment, particularly in MDCs.
  

A global decline in interest in studying agriculture appears to reflect perceptions that agriculture is of declining importance in MDCs and offers less opportunities to individuals in LDCs compared to high technology and high personal income careers. Trends may be associated with a bias in university entry towards urban students who are increasingly separated from food production and are thus uninformed about agriculture and aspects of natural resource management (Loquet, 1996). In the United Kingdom, Harper (1990) quantifies enrollment reductions as high as 46 per cent for agricultural national diplomas in contrast to steady enrollment levels in other subject areas. He relates this to the decline in the agricultural workforce as well as a general image of agriculture. Reactions to this downward trend are commonly a focus for institutional marketing - sometimes styled as Educating the Consumer. In LDCs, the trend appears to be associated with the high status attached to university education and a perception that such status does not accrue to the majority engaged in the industry of agriculture, that is, peasant farmers. Vocational courses, are more directly tied to employment opportunities, thus suffering from a narrow view of declining numbers of commercial agricultural enterprises.

Figure 10.1 Towards Improved Natural Resource Management Education: Integrating the Themes

	Chapter 1 Agriculture and Environment	Chapter 2 Population and Food	Chapter 3 Empathy and Under-standing	Chapter 4 Higher Education in LDCS	Chapter 5 Vocational Education in LDCs	Chapter 6 Education in MDCs	Chapter 7 International Agencies	Chapter 8 Agricultural Education	Chapter 9 New Learning Environments
Problem	Agriculture seen as unnecessarily harsh on natural resources and scientists seem unconcerned	World population growth requires more food production from current systems	Balance between science and humanities in natural resource management is poor	Concerns about access, quality, and relevance of agricultural education and of investment in buildings	Technological orientation divorced from understanding of natural resource principles and industry ownership	Declining popularity of agriculture and separation from public opinion about the environment	Poor links between research and education in LDCs and an infrastructural bias in investment	Extension is separated from education and lessons about learning are not used in education	New communication technologies not yet being used to potential by agricultural universities
Opportunity	Common focus for agricultural science			Public interest in Environment hence NRM				Integration - Adoption
Solution	Wider Public Understanding			New Role for AgriculturalEducation				Offer Expertise Widely
Outcome	Education for Natural Resource Management, publicly understood and supported, widely accessible through electronic means using leading international experts and well developed educational packages from the best global sources.

The trend of restyling agricultural courses as natural resource management or similar names probably reflects the development of natural resource management as a field of student interest. However, this interest does not stem only from agriculturists, and it necessarily requires a stronger underpinning of the social sciences than is common in many agricultural courses. While management of parts of the natural environment, and seeking to control as many variables as possible for intensive food production systems may be seen as natural resource management by agriculturists, it may remain an area of concern to other exponents of the general principles of natural resource management. Agriculture continues to be seen as a pillager of the environment in many cases. The trend for agriculture and natural resource management to be considered as parts of each other is not matched by environmental education including management, as distinct from appreciation and understanding, of ecological aspects of the existing environment.

Meyer (1993) has noted the tendency to rename colleges and faculties to include such names as resource management or natural resources, sometimes to the exclusion of the word agriculture. In Canada, Curtis (1985) describes a market analysis, in demand and supply terms, for the introduction of a new natural resource planning and management course. That analysis investigated the interest of prospective students and employment prospects for graduates. Such an approach is valuable for those courses oriented to employment, as are many courses in applied science fields. However, most educators involved in the field would appear to believe that employment demand is only one indicator of the benefits of agricultural or natural resource education. Other benefits include a wider societal need for such general education among decision-makers of any community, regardless of immediate post-graduation employment destinations.

The overriding trend which must underpin discussions concerning natural resource management education is that of the rising gap in food production and consumption in LDCs. The imperative to produce food is likely to influence environmental protection decisions in all nations. Attempts to separate the wealthy from the problems of the poor in such circumstances would be ill-considered. Even if we choose that path, our attention will ultimately be driven back to increasing the efficiency of food production in all areas of the world through political pressure as well as for humanitarian reasons. It should similarly focus our attention on improving the efficiency of assistance provided from MDCs to LDCs in the form of aid, joint agricultural research, shared international education programs in agriculture, and development finance. The International Food Policy Research Institute predicts that the gap between cereal production and consumption in LDCs as a whole will widen further in coming years (Pinstrup-Andersen and Pandya-Lorch, 1994). While those rapidly developing economies of East Asia may be able to fill this gap through imports, poorer countries will lack sufficient foreign exchange to purchase necessary imported food. These poorer countries, which include most of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, will remain a major concern to the world. Population predictions provide varied scenarios most of which indicate a stabilizing of the population at levels which would demand more than twice as much food as is currently produced. Accomplishing this task in a scenario of decreasing land availability, decreasing availability of the requisites of high input agriculture such as water, fertilizer and biocides, and in an environment of declining funding for agricultural research, represents a challenge of unprecedented proportions for agriculturists (Falvey, 1996). Reproducing the positive outcomes of the Green Revolution will require substantial incremental investment in agricultural education and research across the globe together with the sharing of expertise, some 80 per cent of which exists in the MDCs.

The Responsible Response

Education for the generation, application and management of new technologies in food production is a responsible response to demands of the immediate future. However, this does not mean maintenance of the status quo. Rising interest in protecting the environment, particularly in MDCs, may be expected to lead towards an understanding that natural resource management is an essential component of environmental understanding. This will be a significant progression from the view that food production systems are unnecessary adversaries of environmental protection. While they may well be in many circumstances, they must be seen an essential function of human existence and thus managed in an environmentally sensitive manner. The responsible outcome, that of understanding the principles of minimizing negative impacts on the environment while maintaining essential human values, such as the right to eat, represents an area for community education. This is also a responsibility of educators in these fields.

Community education in such matters implies mechanisms to extend information at various levels to large numbers of persons. This responsibility of natural resource management educators is only beginning to be realized. As identified in New Zealand, introducing such principles to all forms of education is an imperative (NZNHF, 1995). It is a situation analogous to compulsory English subjects in secondary school or compulsory humanities subjects in science-based courses in many of the world's great universities. This is quite a separate proposal to that of reorienting agricultural courses - yet both can be implemented in parallel.

The responsible response not only requires changes in the dissemination of information to the broader community, but also changes to the content of natural resource management courses. Insofar as these courses are likely to evolve, in many cases, from agricultural courses, the unifying themes of such courses should now be open to challenge. The common use of biochemistry as a natural integrator of disciplines relating to the soil, plant, and animal sciences may well be applicable to understanding the principles for natural resource management; but we should not automatically accept that is the only one. Likewise, the use of agribusiness as an integrator between aspects of farm production, product processing, and marketing, may not be applicable to natural resource management in all situations. It is obviously applicable to food production systems in a commercial environment but requires some additional balance to represent the full spectrum of understanding necessary for natural resource management. Coupled with such considerations of the philosophies underpinning curricula for natural resource management is the changing role of undergraduate degrees. As these become more widely available, can they be considered to be the same degree that was offered to a smaller proportion of a society in the past? This question will become more pertinent when we consider the broader implications of natural resource management education being offered through new electronic means to greater numbers of persons.

A tendency in some agricultural courses to highlight the importance of research and to encourage students to aspire to research careers may also be open to challenge for undergraduate courses in natural resource management. The efficiency of encouraging large numbers of students into a research approach when only a small proportion may in fact achieve or aspire to careers in such a field, raises questions as to the efficiency of such courses for those graduates who seek employment in other fields. Notwithstanding this observation, the role of educating future agricultural researchers is critical to meeting future challenges.

It is interesting to contrast what may be considered flaws in present agricultural courses with those in environmental studies/sciences courses which are predicated on a philosophy surrounding environmental destruction caused by applied science. The latter courses while strong on ethics may be weak on scientific rigor, while the reverse may be said, by some, of agricultural courses. The strengths of the two approaches may be most beneficially experienced if the approaches can be brought together in a single program. If agricultural education accommodates such a paradigm shift, it will be better placed to provide solutions to the problems outlined in Chapters 4 to 8.

Relationships Between MDCs and LDCs

There has been an historical trend for agricultural education in LDCs to follow the structure and approaches of MDCs. This trend has been strengthened by the delivery mechanisms of aid and international finance although, even in the absence of such interventions, governments of LDCs themselves have sought to emulate the approaches of MDCs. Whether this is appropriate should always have been open to question but at this time should particularly be so. There exists a need for scientists in LDCs to participate in a global community of peers. However, this need not mean that the organization in which such an individual in a LDC works is a replica of organizations in MDCs. The special problems of LDCs, such as high population levels, low levels of access to higher education, high levels of mobility of educated persons encouraged by poor reward structures, together suggest the need for specially designed approaches to agricultural education and research in LDCs.

The implementation of a widely accessible approach to natural resource education in MDCs and among responsible, and informed persons in all countries, may in fact be exerted through international finance and aid. Just as United Nations' sanctions in response to human rights abuses have been effective, so informed and considered approaches to the design of assistance in natural resource management fields may influence such education and research in LDCs. The same argument should apply to most other sectors. Lest this approach be seen as somewhat theoretical, let us remain aware of the opportunities to introduce electronic means of communication and learning environments in LDCs. Electronic systems can cater for huge numbers of persons at relatively low costs when compared to past foreign assistance and investment in agricultural education projects which consume substantial investment in buildings and staff.

The formula which required one highly educated lecturer to teach in her or his field to a group of 30 to 100 students in a classroom may no longer be relevant. As natural resource management education involves more use of electronic distance education, the knowledge and teaching skills of such individuals may be extended over larger numbers of learners. Concerns over assessment loads, cheating, lack of teacher-student interaction and a host of others, all present academic management issues for the future. They will be solved and may eventually be seen in the same context as past concerns over the use of electronic calculators as compared to mental arithmetic. The influence which international financing institutions such as the World Bank, and leading international agricultural research centers such as those of the CGIAR, can be brought to bear to increase the efficiency of agricultural education in LDCs. The leaders and best teachers in each field should be the most accessible. This will be the advent of the new wave of technology in education - whether it is owned and controlled by universities or not. Indeed it is a responsibility of educational institutions to utilize knowledge of technologies to such ends and to thus create a desirable future rather than simply react to whatever comes along.

A Designer Future

Some components of natural resource management education in the future may be:

• a sound understanding of the role and benefits of education
• enhancing community understanding
• natural resource management education as an essential component of all courses
• a reduction in the numbers of providers associated with a retreat to quality
• appreciation of the role of technical experts and links to skills-based and higher education
• enhanced appreciation of the role of researchers and improved efficiency in their-training
• addressing of imbalances between the proportion of scientists working on major international food production issues between LDCs and MDCs
• shifts in public attitudes towards natural resource management
• resurgence of emphasis on food production agriculture by major international development agencies
• recognition of the current comparative advantage of some MDCs in the science and technology of agriculture
• a shift from environmental awareness-raising towards viable industries which are based on environmental improvement
• broadening agricultural education to include aesthetic and emotional components.

The benefits of education are illustrated in many analyses of economic development. For example, Tribe and Peel (1989) note the favorable circumstances for early agricultural development in Australia, one of which was access to knowledge and education. In the USA, Hightower (1973), criticizes the lack of access to Education Across Distance causing non-uniform agricultural development in the early days of the Land Grant Colleges of the USA.

Broadening agricultural education to include aesthetic and emotional values is likely to be based on the development of greater ecological consciousness surrounding our place in nature. Development of a land ethic, as distinct from a view of land as an asset to be used, is extolled by Roberts (1995). While the success of civilizations has historically been measured partially in economic terms, it has also been measured in terms of creativity and even spiritual values, and we should see the factors of economic necessity and environmental care going hand-in-hand in that context in the future. Technical education may be used to be introduce students to the need to embrace creative fields and the humanities in a global appreciation of natural resource management. Reviews of agricultural and related courses in the USA (Kellogg Foundation, 1995) and Australia (McColl and Chudleigh, 1991) tend to focus on technical aspects of agricultural and related education. The future introduction of humanitarian and social science values into agricultural education will likely be in a manner far more consequential than the extension and economic components of agricultural courses of the past and present.

A higher level of community understanding of environmental considerations and natural resource management will allow more rational discussion of, for example, the imperative of intensive food-production agriculture. It will also assist in allocation of appropriate public research funds for those public-good areas related to improved food production and improved environmental management. Such a situation may be analogous to the community wisdom which developed after the fifteenth century purging of witches; Clark (1981) quotes contemporary accounts of that time, viz; Ö wheat inexplicably rotting in the fields, sheep dying of unknown causes, vineyards smitten with unseasonable frosts, human disease and impotence on the rise. The immediate response through the publication of The Hammer of the Witches (Malleus Maleficarum) became what Huber (1993) describes as the medieval environmentalists' Silent Spring, through simple community misunderstanding of the wider factors impacting on their environment. The Medieval period of witch-hunts passed and after massive purges, the effects of animal and plant diseases were seen in context. So may we see a general community appreciation of the imperatives of food production within an overarching context of natural resource management.

The future should also seek increased attention to the inclusion of natural resource materials in all education. Pomerantz (1991) in evaluating education materials, concluded that insufficient attention has been paid to specific resource management issues and that students were not encouraged to develop analytical skills or environmentally conscious behavior. He noted that the challenge for natural resource education at elementary level is to make children aware of resource management issues and to then involve them in an informed and participatory level later. In New Zealand, the responsibility for introducing Wider Environmental Education in the community has been seen to lie with tertiary education in the first instance. Such education would be complemented by specific environmental competency in a manner somewhat akin to the agricultural education metamorphous into natural resource management education.

A global reduction in the number of agricultural education providers should be expected despite the above comments supporting its role and potential expansion. Some rationalization may relate to courses failing to adapt to changing requirements of funding resources and students. In other cases, it may seem a logical decision from the point of view of overall university management to fragment small agricultural faculties into their component disciplines within the faculties of science, social science and economics. In the USA, it has been suggested that by the year 2025 there may be only 25 land grant universities remaining - less than half the present number. Associated with such a rationalization should be an emphasis on quality and expertise in specific aspects of natural resource management. The ability of electronic communications to extend education further than previous distance education mechanisms will allow these entities to impact wider numbers of students. The creation of A*DEC (1996) and its predecessor AgSat provides a glimpse of future mechanisms for accessing natural resource management education. In likening the A*DEC approach to a supermarket in which potential purchasers can browse products on display and select those that suit, in terms of subject quality and presumably price, the need for leading lecturers at all institutions decreases. A*DEC management notes that while the supermarket analogy is appropriate, "mom and pop" stores will also continue in those cases where specific colleges require their own agricultural or natural resource management presence.

The trend of linking high quality skills training programs to higher education may be expected to continue. The advantage of technical training for vocational purposes has been well established. Its linkages to higher education degrees in technical fields acknowledges the blend of skills and integrative knowledge that form those qualifications. In discussing the engineering profession, Tribus (1978) claimed that persons involved in technology may be better placed to see future developments yet reticent to enter decision-making concerning such futures, taking a role as Silent Prophets.

The role of research in natural resource management will become clearer and specific pathways will be developed to train new researchers. The efficiency of such training within present university systems is seen by some to be below capabilities. Linkages between research providing organizations, particularly in the applied sciences, and institutions charged with training such researchers will become stronger. This will lead to the graduate studies of future researchers involving accomplished research institute staff as lecturers and supervisors of their projects which in turn will be conducted increasingly in the laboratories and fields of research organizations. The role of the university would be in those areas of its greatest strength namely, maintaining a balanced picture of the context in which research is conducted, quality control and associated accreditation. It may not be necessary in the future for applied science components of universities to employ the staff in all of the fields of services offered in their sphere of influence. This may enhance the role for the broadly based and up-to-date persons within universities to coordinate and manage such specialist inputs.

The imbalance in the scientific capability between LDCs and MDCs is likely to be partly redressed in the future as an essential response to increased food production and increased capability in natural resource management. However, this may not be simply the production of greater numbers of research scientists in LDCs. It may take the form of a greater responsibility for scientists in MDCs to utilize their expertise as widely as possible. Such expansion of responsibility may be facilitated through electronic communications as distinct from requiring frequent physical presences of scientists in multiple locations. In this way, the comparative advantage of MDCs in science and technology in the fields of agriculture and natural resource management will become clearer. Such a comparative advantage may create commercial advantages for MDCs and be one of a range of future industries in which enhanced environmental outcomes are associated with financial rewards.

A shift in attitudes among informed persons in MDCs can also be expected. This has been introduced earlier in terms of the expected introduction of altruistic and emotional components of environmental subjects into natural resource management courses. Shifts in community attitudes will probably bring a reconciliation between science and the community as a greater understanding of the approaches and expected outcomes of applied science research is gained within the wider community. Changes in attitudes may be related to a general increase in concern for environmental welfare as a component of increasing the levels of comfort of human beings in living together.

Coupled with such understanding, a sense of responsibility may develop to extend knowledge to LDCs, where adjustment to changing circumstances such as high population growth and apparent helplessness in food production areas, overwhelm decision makers. It will contrast with the view of the community expressed by Dostoyevsky that Ö secular science [has] investigated everything handed down to us in sacred books [and has] left nothing of what was held sacred before. But they have only investigated the parts and overlooked the whole, so much so that one cannot help being astonished at their blindness. By conceiving agriculture as a major component of natural resource management, the integrative nature of existing agricultural courses will be further enhanced in providing a broader context for both research and education. In so doing it should heed the Dostoyevskian warning.

The future may also see significant shifts in approaches of financing organizations, such as the World Bank, and aid donors. Whereas past projects have focused on duplicating systems of MDCs in LDCs, present systems appear to be influenced by commercial interests in MDCs. The future should see increased interest in food production and investment to enhance its production across the world. Evidence of this occurring may be seen in recent statements of the President of the World Bank - we may soon see the Agriculture Phoenix take wings.

In addition to a focus on food production agriculture, critical analysis of the most appropriate means of broadening education concerning agriculture and natural resource management may lead to a significant shift away from investment in buildings towards communication which links universities and scientists in both MDCs and LDCs. Barriers to language, seen by some as preventing such communication systems from operating, maybe overcome in the same manner that textbook languages have been overcome in agricultural education in the past. Translation of English and other texts into the languages of students has been a major contribution to education in agriculture in many LDCs. Similarly, through electronic linkages, tutorial and language assistance can conceivably be offered by informed persons fluent in the languages of students as a local value-adding educational service.

Orienting natural resource management education, and agricultural education within it, to expected future industries in the sector is somewhat hazardous. It is difficult to conceive the industries that will be of importance in the year 2050 in terms of natural resource management. Nevertheless, we might expect to see the development of the environmental enhancement industry which regenerates saline and other polluted areas, re-establishment of rain forests and replanting of mangroves, for example, as specialist industries commanding significant income streams for countries with requisite expertise. Another such industry postulated by Ellyard (1996) is that of the waste-into-food industry in which waste from cities is directly converted into a useful product for food production through composting or other mechanisms. Such new industries will form one component in the design of natural resource management education.

Prophets And Profits

Prophets of the future environmental scenarios for the world commonly paint alarming scenarios. Indeed, the first two chapters of this book introduced some serious concerns. There is a danger in repeating this concern frequently - the wider community may become hardened to the message, and when it becomes urgent the community may have become deaf - another case of Crying Wolf. Daily news messages of catastrophes are presented to attract our attention. The over-riding message of concern should be that of the imperative for food production to meet increased numbers of people in the world and the consequences of such increased food production on the environment. The imperative of minimizing environmental destruction while increasing food production is the critical aspect of natural resource management. However, it is curious that such prophets do not commonly include the scenario in which humankind adapts and develops mechanisms to adjust to living on the planet under new circumstances of high population density. Nevertheless, the prophets have certainly been successful in Getting Our Attention.

Ellyard (1996) expects positive human responses to opportunities that arise in terms of environmental regeneration and other industries associated with living under changing conditions. Such industries may be very profitable - thereby adding credibility to these postulations. It provides one more reason for optimism about the future. Orienting students and the community to understand the emergence of such opportunities for students to lead society in the future is the path for natural resource management education.

Getting Our Attention

Despite the partiality of their prophecies, the modern environmental prophets deserve credit for alerting the community and, particularly the politicians, to the urgency of the most important combination of issues (population, poverty, hunger and environment) which faces mankind. Their efforts culminated in the biggest international conference that has ever been held - the 1992 United Nations Conference on the environment and development in Rio de Janeiro - which for a few brief weeks focused world attention on a range of critical environmental issues. Tribe (1994).

Designing a future for natural resource management education is analogous to a business planning activity. However, it requires a broader imagination of the possibilities that are desirable, the means by which they may be achieved and means to avoid closing-off opportunities.

The issues of today in education relating to natural resource management have been discussed in Chapters 3 to 6. Issues such as quality, access, skills-based training and articulation, declining budgets, staff tenure constraints in management, a focus on staff-designed courses and inputs in contrast to educational outputs, could all be used as a focus for future planning. However, focusing on removal of problems can seldom be assumed to produce the best of desired outcomes; some issues may not be considered at all in that approach. Examples include, the absence of altruism and emotion concerning the environment from agricultural courses, and neglecting to focus on the industries of the next century rather than the industries of today. The desirable outcome of designing a future is to conceive what that future might entail and to design, in this case, the educational programs to suit it and any necessary management systems needed for support. Given the long lead times for change in education coupled with the long periods of study involved for students, such a future perspective would seem the responsible way in which to plan future educational investment.

Elements of a future are emerging, such as introduced in Chapter 9. The virtual university may comprise several of today's universities. It could take a client and market orientation and seek to remain separate from traditional management systems of universities. Accessing the best courses available and having them adapted to distance education, could herald a high quality and cost effective new era in natural resource education. However, while addressing today's problems of access and intransigence in the face of change, such innovation does not yet represent the complete designing of a future.

The broadening global debate concerning agricultural and natural resource management education requires a significant push. In parallel with bold attempts to address current constraints and problems, there is a need for long term visioning based on a desirable future for education. Perhaps agricultural and natural resource management education does not require more than a handful of physical institutions, perhaps it does not require face-to-face teaching, perhaps laboratory and field instruction can be conducted on a basis which is far less labor intensive and involve industry to a greater extent. Perhaps LDCs can electronically access both information and knowledge; perhaps the provision of learning services does not need to be linked to certification.

The imperative of food production for rising numbers of people, a continued reliance on soil-based agriculture, and the need for continuing research and knowledge dissemination favors continued investment in agricultural and natural resource management education. The role of international finance institutions in stimulating such development in LDCs continues although investment may be better oriented to outcomes associated with improved access and improved ability to apply knowledge. As in MDCs, such outcomes appear to relate to investment in technologies which free education from its physical, institutional and social constraints. In fields as basic to human existence as food production and natural resource management, it is the responsibility of those engaged in delivery, management, and policy formulation to take a wider view of the future of education in these fields.

April 5, 1997 - One Thousand Days to Plan

Aged see visions at end of span
as dreams dreamt of hope not fear,
Bow to whom the future doth plan!
they the ones we must revere.

Each New Year, we new resolve,
One day's thought, short in extreme,
Like fin de siècle plans involve
one hundred days of future dream.

One thousand days to our new start,
A new millennium nigh,
What direction for man to chart?
Wisdom with power must vie.

Now the sole time to reconcile,
now the hour for equity,
Undo past wrongs which so beguile,
New epoch's first victory.

Design a future which all trust,
Bad's demise but part of good,
World with all fed is only just,
Built on global sibling-hood.

Then learning that great human gift,
released to all equals,
Lets soft screen glow span knowledge rift,
Thus falls cartel of Babel.

Sixty centuries with no plan,
Success outweighs all failure,
Plan the next for good of man,
Not perfect world, just better.

Lets be revered by future peers,
build a world with less real fears,
forsake the crystal orb and seers;
Last chance for one thousand years.