Centrally manage mature forest - it shows character (6)
I believe the answer is:
nature
'character' is the definition.
(I know that Nature is a literary character)
'centrally manage mature forest' is the wordplay.
'centrally' means to look at the middle letters.
'mature forest' becomes 'ture' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The central letters of 'manage' are 'na'.
'na'+'ture'='NATURE'
'it shows' is the link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nature that I've seen before include "variety" , "Picturesque countryside" , "Basic character" , "Character - our Mother" , "Kind - disposition" .)