Swimmer Crosses Maldives

Endurance swimmer and environmental campaigner, Lewis Gordon Pugh, 37, became the first man to complete a 160km swim across the breadth of the Maldives last week.

The swim, which Pugh began on 26 February to raise awareness of the impact climate change could have on the Maldives, took 10 days to complete.

The Maldives is expected to be one of the first nations to feel the effects of rising sea levels and warming waters due to man-made climate change.

Pugh wrote of the matter: “The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) recently predicted a 59cm rise in sea level over the next 100 years. This will have a devastating effect on the Maldives and its people. While they have done virtually nothing to contribute to the causes of climate change, their future now lies in our hands. Unless we all cut our carbon emissions today, the Maldives and many other low lying areas have no future.

Latest predictions by the IPCC say that there is a 'probable' chance of sea levels rising by 59 centimetres each century for the next 200 years. With 80% of the Maldives' 1,192 islands being no more than 1 metre above sea level it will take less than 100 years for many of the islands to become uninhabitable.

 Pugh’s attempt to spread word of the Maldives’ gloomy forecast was not easy. While swimming through 33 degrees centigrade water he expended nearly 7,000 calories a day, had to avoid sharks and manta rays, was stung by jellyfish and was blown 20km off course by storms.

After completing the swim, however, Pugh was greeted in Male’ by hundreds of Maldivian school children waving flags.

He said: "I see climate change from a unique perspective. I see its impacts first hand – ice sheets melting, coral dying, lakes disappearing and species migrating. It is crucial that urgent legislative change is introduced to ensure that the biggest polluters – the industrialised nations – are forced to real action now.”

“I am delighted that the IPCC Report has received significant attention,” Pugh continued, “but it remains the case that while governments delay or refuse to take appropriate action, entire countries like the Maldives simply have to watch and wait to see what fate will befall them. Through these Climate Change Challenge swims I want to keep the pressure on for legislative change while also encouraging people to take action themselves at a domestic level – because small steps taken by everyone on the planet really will help make a big difference”.

Courtesy: By Phillip Wellman (Minivan News)
07 March 2007