Vladimir Putin
IN PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) attends an Orthodox Christmas service at a local cathedral of the village Otradnoye in Voronezh region January 7, 2015. Most Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar on January 7, two weeks after most western Christian churches that abide by the Gregorian calendar. REUTERS/Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin

An environmental campaigner, 45-year-old Lewis Pugh, is going to swim across the Antarctic seas in a pair of speedos. He hopes to catch the attention of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, by undertaking this challenge.

Pugh is the Patrons of the Oceans for the United Nations. He hopes that he would persuade the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which was established to preserve marine life near the Antarctic and is currently chaired by Russia, to create a zone in the Antarctic that would be fishing-free.

According to the Telegraph, Pugh, nicknamed the human polar bear, will be looking forward to completing the first of a series of five Antarctic swims. The waters are expected to be about -1.7 degrees Celsius, which is the coldest that saltwater becomes before it freezes.

Pugh said that the Ross Sea was a polar Garden of Eden. The area had been home for commercial fishing since the 90s, and Pugh is hoping that before the ecosystem was affected permanently, a Marine Protected Area should come into place.

Ross Sea was home to many species such as the Antarctic Toothfish, the Emperor Penguin and the Colossal Squid. He explained that the toothfish was a "white gold" for fishermen and was a delicacy that was sold as Chilean Sea Bass in Western restaurants.

Pugh has a dream that the whole of the Ross Sea should be closed to industrial fishing. He is aware of the fact that it would be a difficult task to persuade a few of the countries to pull out of the CCAMLR, made of 24 countries as well as the European Union.

In 2014, a proposal to close a part of the Ross Sea was put forth, but the CCAMLR did not come to an agreement. Pugh believes that he could persuade the policymakers of Russia. He said that Russia had many scientific bases in the Antarctica, and five seas around the continent was named after explorers from Russia. He said that Russia had a huge interest and it had invested a lot of money there. He explained that Russia wouldn't want to see the destruction of the environment because of fishing.

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