Residents of Hungary's capital on Thursday encountered a rare sight on the streets of Budapest: two camels lumbering down the street as part of demonstration by an environmental group to draw attention to the possible desertification of Hungary.

Members of the Green Guerrilla Movement marched with their animals through central Budapest to the gates of Agriculture Ministry as part of their "Carpathian Desert Project," a demonstration against the government's water policy, which they see as ignoring climate change.

"We have known the land is drying out for 50 years but we only believed that man could solve everything with "techno-optimism", that we could rise above nature. But this has now turned out to be not true," said agricultural engineer Kitti Magyar at the protest.

The Green Guerrilla Movement's action on Thursday came in response to what they say have been years without any meaningful progress or preventive climate measures in Hungary, which in recent years has been hit by several severe droughts, causing losses of up to 3% of Hungarian GDP.

According to the Green Guerrilla Movement, if the drought and soil erosion worsen, Hungarian food production could collapse within a year or two, primarily in the country’s Great Plain, where more than two-thirds of the country's food is produced.

Protestors called the government to rethink its current water management practices as soon as possible.

Magyar believes the source of the problem is not insufficient rainfall, but current land use and cultivation practices, "which are unsustainable in terms of soil, hydrology and agroecology," the agricultural engineer said.

National average rainfall in June and July was far less than a fifth of the long-term average.

The extreme drought put vegetation to the test and also posed challenges to Hungary's drinking water supply.

"This country already looks like the savannah," protest organiser László Kulcsár said.

"The grass is burned out and turned yellow. Some trees that can handle the heat are still green, but most of them drying out one by one. This phenomenon will continue in the future.”

AP video by Bela Szandelszky