Through August, Lewis Pugh is doing long distance swims in the Seven Seas of ancient maritime folklore - The Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean, Black, Arabian and North. His mission is to highlight the need for Marine Protected Areas across the globe.
Lewis Pugh is most famous for having swum in the Arctic in 2007 to highlight the loss of Arctic sea ice as a result of climate change. The water temperature was minus 1.7 degrees and it took months for his body to fully recover. I need to steel myself before I plunge into the sea in Cornwall and that is in the summer, in a wetsuit, when the temperature is 14 degrees. He has also swum in a Himalayan glacial lake (the highest swim ever undertaken) to raise awareness of melting glaciers and repercussions for water supply across Asia, across the Maldives and around Robben Island in South Africa (a primary habitat for Great White Sharks).
His feats are truly inspirational. The message that he embodies is what is possible if you truly commit to overcoming a physical challenge. He has set himself these Herculean tasks to highlight the need for a global response to an environmental challenge-the fact that less than 3% of our seas are protected. How much more does a man need to do to show that he cares?
The response needs to come from Governments across the world; but the call needs to come from people. Across these ancient seas our demand for resources has outstripped their ability to regenerate and we now see populations of Common Skate and Monk Seal at the edge of extinction. We know that these seas are polluted and overfished, but the scale of the problem leaves us feeling paralysed and powerless.
We don’t all have to swim vast distances or take a dip in Arctic waters, but like Lewis we need to remind our politicians that we care. In one sense, it doesn’t really matter how the message is relayed - we can swim, hop or run, but ultimately it is important that politicians hear that the protection of the sea is important to us.
As he left South Africa to start this mission, Desmond Tutu wished Lewis Pugh well saying ‘when we damage the environment and don’t protect our resources we create the conditions necessary for conflict. However when we protect the environment we bring peace.’ The protection of our environment may feel a lesser priority than issues such as energy and the cost of living, but our economies are fundamentally rooted in the natural world and the resources and value it provides for us.
When he completed the swim in the Mediterranean this weekend he was met by Prince Albert of Monaco. I am not sure who will be meeting him when he swims up the Thames on the 29th August, but if you are in London then it would be great to ensure he gets a reception to show our gratitude for this feat to highlight the importance of protecting our seas.