As part of a climate change education and awareness initiative, South Africa’s largest retailer, Pick n Pay, will partner with pioneer swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh as he undertakes the first-ever symbolic swim in a lake under the summit of Mount Everest in April 2010. The aim of this key event is to raise public awareness internationally, in Africa and particularly in South Africa regarding the devastating impact of climate change.

Pugh, who is also known as the ‘Human Polar Bear’, will be the first person to swim in the freezing conditions of Mount Everest – at an altitude of 5 600 metres above sea level in a temperature of one degree celsius. This will indeed be his most challenging swim to date. Remarkably he has pioneered more swims around famous landmarks than any other swimmer in history, and is the only person to have completed a long-distance swim in every ocean in the world. Since being the first person to undertake a long-distance swim in the freezing waters of the North Pole, he has dedicated his life to campaigning for the protection of the environment.

Pugh says “The swim across the North Pole completely changed me. I feel incredibly invigorated; and believe I have earned the right to approach world leaders to tell them what’s happening up there. We can protect this place, we can cut our carbon emissions; we can leave this world in a better state than it was in when we received it.”

Currently more than one-billion people are dependent on water flowing from the Himalayas, and experts say the Himalayan glaciers are melting at an alarming rate. Glaciers in the Himalayas, a 2 400 kilometre (1 500 mile) range that sweeps through Pakistan, India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, provide headwaters for Asia’s nine largest rivers, a lifeline for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream.