A call that requires popular attention
Yesterday, 27 of September, we celebrated World Tourism Day under the theme “Tourism and water: protecting our common future”. The rationale behind the theme is to highlight the essentiality of water in our daily life and the need for its conservation. With the global warming the scarcity of water would be inevitable aspect that human being should take care in order to go on living on the planet. Hence for the UN World Tourism Organization to dedicate this year’s Tourism Day for water is timely that every human being should give attention. In other words, it is a wake up call to us to open our eyes and look to the future, the continuity of generations for without water it is the end of life. That is what makes water an essential component for life.
Many scientists, politicians and others have much talked about conservation of water, but in the final analysis it is we, the common people that should give our ears to the messages and start taking majors aimed at conserving the water in our disposal and allow generations the right for sustainability.
According to the scientists who follow the global water pattern tell us that approximately 98% of water on the glob is salty and only 2% is fresh. And of that 2% almost 70% is snow and ice, 30% is underground and less than 0.5% is surface water and 0.05% is in the atmosphere. With this alarming statistics we could understand how dare is the future our water supply unless we take appropriate majors, wise water management.
It is said that Leonardo da Vinci ones said “With time, and water, everything changes.” His observation rightly captures the biological and other essentiality of water. In other words the importance of water and the need for its conservation is not a new phenomena, but concept that goes thousands of years back. Leonardo da Vinci might have observed people taking water for granted. And still to date people seem to take water for granted. The water wastage that we are seeing on our backyard is typical example on how we Eritreans, especially in the cities, take water for granted.
Talking about water conservation we mean using our water wisely and caring for it properly. Since we all depend on water for life, it is our responsibility to learn more on how we can help keep our water pure and safe for generation to come before it is too late. In order to do that we must make changes in our life style that eventually would change the course of our water and its
quality.
Dedicating this year’s Tourism Day for water is only to use the occasion for a noble purpose. Otherwise it is a message that should be conveyed every day in every year. Our water supply is limited; we don’t have an endless supply.
Countries with meager rainfall are very vulnerable and need a strong water management. That includes conducting constant and sustainable awareness campaign so that their people understand the importance of conserving water in their disposal. Unwise usage of water should be avoided at any cost, because we rely on small percentage of all the water on earth and that it only makes sense that we must preserve and conserve our water.
We must save water today so that it will be available to us in the future. We need to think of future generations, people who will not have a sufficient supply of water unless we become more concerned with how we use our water today. There are many things that we can do to help preserve water. These are not things that are hard. All it takes is a little bit of extra effort, and soon it will be second nature. And that is exactly the message of this year’s Tourism Day. We save our water and protect our common future for water is life.