"Let Us Have Actions in Addition to Words," said the Advocate for the Future Generations for the World Day for Water

"Declarations are not enough yet for gaining clean drinking water. Serious determination and actions are required from all stakeholders in order to use the finite water reserve as efficiently as possible, taking into consideration all legitimate needs as well as the interests of the future generations," referred Marcel Szabó, advocate for the future generations, the "green ombudsman," to the common responsibility on the World Day for Water. Almost one million seven hundred thousand EU citizens have just recently supported the first successful citizens' initiative with their signature, which started out as the recognition of the fundamental human right to clean drinking water.  

According to Marcel Szabó, advocate for the future generations, the World Day for Water is more than the usual, almost family celebration of the experts and the conservationists, commemorating routinely the importance of the four ancient elements. The "green ombudsman" supported the general recognition of the right to healthy drinking water as a fundamental human right in several national and international fora, including the Water World Summit in Budapest. The proposal was welcomed and strongly supported even then among experts and politicians from all over the world. The organisers of the Right2Water initiative called upon the European Commission to ensure the right to water and sanitation for every EU citizen and to adjust the EU legislation to this requirement.   

This time, millions of people feel ownership of this day of memorial. Those 1 million 680 thousand EU citizens for sure, who supported the first successful citizens' initiative of the European Union with their signature, taking advantage of the new opportunity for the collective decision-making process, which initiative aimed at recognizing the right to clean drinking water as a fundamental human right. The European Commission has recently announced that they support the initiative and they will do their best to accomplish that within their competence.

At the same time, every responsible citizen and institution must be aware of the fact that determination is only the first, though very significant, step. Declarations themselves do not yet result in clean drinking water. "Serious determination and actions are required from all stakeholders in order to use the finite water reserve as efficiently as possible, taking into consideration all legitimate needs as well as the interests of future generations," warned Marcel Szabó on the World Day for Water. The advocate for the future generations also said that it was important to understand that the water demands of the citizens, agriculture, tourism and the industry occasionally competed with each other inevitably and carefully considered and responsible decisions must be taken to supply all these demands with sufficient amount of water. In order to ensure this not only today, but in ten, hundred years, it is also necessary to consider the water demand of someone who is not able to demand it forcefully, whose voice we are often not willing to hear, that is, the Nature.    

Urbanized modern people inevitably intervene into the natural water cycle and they are often not aware of the fact that this intervention should be minimized in their own interest as much as reasonably possible. It is part of our responsibility for the future to avoid our sources, wells, lands, wet habitats and forests drying up. Although, people are often bound to forget that they are part of the nature, healthy life can only be pursued in a healthy nature. Nevertheless, people could do much for nature conservation, if they lived sensibly and moderately. In order to do this, however, Marcel Szabó considers such institutions necessary, which are capable of coordinating and sensibly regulating the various water use and water demand (including its ecological element as well). The World Day for Water makes it possible to draw the attention of all people with good intentions and all responsible institutions to the need of cooperation for the attainment of these objectives.