“To find lasting peace between people, we must first make peace with nature”

The Arctic Ocean is a crucial barometer of climate change. It’s a place of extremes, and Lewis has witnessed extraordinary changes over the decades he’s been swimming here.

Edge of Arctic Sea Ice

2017 | 78° N 16° E
1km: 21 mins 29 secs
Water temperature: minus 0.1°C – minus 0.6°C

Lewis almost didn’t come back from this swim. No one else had ever even attempted it. The swim was to draw attention to the fact that the Arctic is warming, but the speed of runaway climate change meant that the scheduled cold-water training session wasn’t cold enough – it was 10°C, not 3°C as expected. Lewis got through the epic swim by breaking it into little chunks. With close to 22 minutes in the water, this was his longest swim ever in sub-zero waters. It took its toll; afterwards he was bruised all over and it took a very long time to warm up.

North Pole

2007 | 90° N
1km: 18 mins 50 secs
Water temperature: minus 1.7°C

Minus 1.7°C was the coldest water any human had ever swum in. The water was ink black, and it was 4.2 long, cold kilometres to the bottom. The threat of polar bears was real. But the reason Lewis was terrified, was that he shouldn’t have been able to swim across the North Pole in the first place. Two years previously, 23% of the Arctic ice cover had melted. He was swimming to draw the world’s attention to the effect of climate crisis on the Arctic. The swim took 18 minutes and 50 seconds.

Verlegenhuken, Spitsbergen, Norway 

2005 | 78° N 13° E
1km: 20 mins 30 secs
Water temperature: 3°C

Having just swum across Magdalenefjord, at 79° North, Lewis wanted to do the world’s most northern long-distance swim at Verlegenhuken, which means ‘Point of Desolation’. Lewis’s medical advisor felt that a second swim in the space of 12 hours was just too much. But he also said he’d never ever seen a more inappropriate place to do a long-distance swim. So, Lewis promised he would get out of the water the minute he was advised to. He managed the full 1,000m swim. No other human had done anything like it.

Magdalenefjord, Spitsbergen, Norway 

2005 | 79° N 10° E
1km: 21 mins 30 secs
Water temperature: 3°C

The team for the most northern long-distance swim ever was made up of Brits, South Africans, Norwegians and one Dane, whose job it was to keep an eye out for hungry polar bears. At massive turquoise glacier fed into the fjord, with ice chunks as big as buildings breaking off and landing in the 3°C water to form floating icebergs. Under the water, Lewis could hear snap-crackle-pop, the sound of tiny air bubbles being released from the ice – air that had been trapped there as much as 3,000 years ago. To swim through this sound was to swim through history.

North Cape, Norway 

2003 | 71° N 25° E
5 km: 1 hr 4 mins
Water temperature: 8°C

Lewis visualised the entire swim from beginning to end; imprinting every crag and every valley so he could track his progress during the swim. It would be particularly challenging, not just because of the 8°C water, but because he was so thin. Lewis was serving in the British SAS at the time and could have been deployed at any moment. No insulating body fat allowed. But there was a warm fire waiting on the beach when he completed the first ever swim above the Arctic Circle. It was the beginning of his love affair with Norway.

Connecting old and new worlds, touching four continents and challenging ocean explorers for centuries, the Atlantic is still rough and cold, and now also chronically overfished.

The Length of the English Channel, United Kingdom 

2018 | 50°N 0°W
528 km: 49 days (103 hours 45 mins)
Water temperature: 14°C – 20°C
Land’s End to Dover

Endurance swimmers call it the ‘Everest of Swims’. But no one had ever swum the length of the Channel. The purpose of this swim was to bring the message home to the British government that only seven out of 750,000 square kilometres of its waters were fully protected. These waters support a wealth of marine life, but the only lifeforms Lewis encountered in abundance were jellyfish – their painful stings a reminder of how our seas are changing. ‘The Long Swim’ took 49 grueling days; sometimes bad weather made conditions too dangerous to swim in and so a double session had to be swum the following day. Michael Gove, the UK’s Environment Minister, met Lewis as he touched the wall at Dover Harbour. A month later the UK supported our call for 30% of oceans to be protected by 2030, becoming the first major economy to recognise the importance of large, protected areas to save our seas.

Sognefjord, Norway 

2004 | 61°N 6°E
204kms: 21 days

The ‘King of the Fjords’. It’s the longest unfrozen fjord in the world, and Lewis decided to swim the full length of it. It would be the longest swim he’d done, at the time. The goal was to do 10 kilometres each day. Swimming was actively discouraged in Sognefjord, possibly because two tourists had tragically drowned trying to cross it, a few years earlier. Eventually, dozens of kids swam with Lewis at the end of each day. And when Lewis’s swim was over, he organised a race across the fjord for them.

Around Robben Island, South Africa 

2004 | 33°S 18°E
10 km: 3 hrs 42 mins

17 Years after his first Robben Island swim, Lewis decided to break the record for swimming around the island itself. The island has large kelps beds around it, and while it was tempting to take a short cut, kelp has sharp edges and there are sharks in the water. Lewis broke the record he’d set 10 years earlier by racing it with Otto Thaning. Lewis still suspects Otto let him draw just to build Lewis into the swimmer he could be.

Cape Peninsula, South Africa 

2004 | 33°S 18°E
100kms: 37 hrs over 13 days

When Lewis was about to embark on a 100km swim around the Cape Peninsula, no one had ever done a staged swim in the ocean before. He planned to break the swim up into 10 stages of 10kms each. The temperature would be consistently cold, the conditions rough. So, he asked the world-famous sports physiologist Professor Tim Noakes if he thought his body could handle it. He had only one word: “Yes”. Swimming into the gale-force South Easter day after day after day was brutal. But Lewis made it around the Cape of Storms. In the end, it just takes one yes.

Cape of Good Hope, South Africa 

2004 | 33°S 18°E
12kms: 3 hrs 15 mins

When a Great White Shark had sped underneath Lewis and his three swimming companions, the sea was rough and the support boat with its electronic shark protection device was about 100m away. (The efficacy range is about 10m.) The group sprinted towards the boat and regrouped. From there, the decision was unanimous. The swim would continue. 12kms later, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point, the group were on the beach at Buffels Bay. Now the Cape of Good Hope had also become Lewis’s Cape of Good Luck.

Dassen Island to Yzerfontein, South Africa 

1993 | 33° S 18°E
10 kms: 2 hrs 35 mins

Lewis views this as a flawless swim. Dassen Island is about 100km north of Robben Island and had an incredible penguin colony. Lewis is crazy about penguins. It’s 10 kilometres to the mainland and the water was an icy 9°C. This was the first time Lewis had the use of a GPS so the support team could tell how fast he was going and what distance he’d covered. He broke the previous record by 2 hours. It remained the fastest 10km swim in South Africa for many years.

English Channel, England / France 

1992 | 50°N 0°W
32kms: 14 hrs 50 mins

This is the Everest of swims. It’s the swim against which every other swim is measured. The first five hours were like being in a washing machine. Just as Lewis worried that he wasn’t going to make it, it started to get a lot calmer. But he was exhausted, and t10 hours from France. There are a few essentials to getting across the Channel: an experienced pilot who can find you the shortest distance, the patience to wait for the right day to cross, cold-water training and someone really inspiring on your boat who can make good judgement calls. This swim left Lewis so exhausted he couldn’t lift his knife and fork to eat breakfast the next day.

Robben Island, South Africa 

1987 | 33°S 18°E
7.4km: 3 hrs

Lewis’s first long-distance swim was the seven and a half kilometres between Robben Island and Blouberg Beach, Cape Town. The support crew were betting against Lewis making it because he was so skinny. Three hours later, Lewis had shown them. It was the first time he’d achieved something significant. Three things stand out for him about that swim, and how much has changed since then. First, the island was still an Apartheid prison, rather than a monument to freedom. Secondly, the beach was covered with penguins that morning; the colony is now threatened with extinction. And thirdly, if Lewis hadn’t made it across, it’s unlikely that he would have turned into the endurance swimmer and ocean advocate that he is today.

Sometimes benevolent, more often challenging, the Indian Ocean has taught Lewis some key lessons.

Across the Red Sea - Saudi Arabia to Egypt 

2022 | 28°N 34°E to 27°N 33°E
123 km: 16 days (46 hours 13 mins)
Water temperature: 27°C – 30°C

Saudi swimmer Dr Mariam Saleh Bin Laden and Egyptian Mostafa Zaki, joined Lewis for stretches of the Red Sea crossing. On reaching Sharm el-Sheikh, Mariam become the first woman to swim from Saudi Arabia to Egypt.

The swim was Lewis’s hottest. It was also the windiest – a gale blew non-stop for 10 days as they crossed the Gulf of Suez – one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The swim was particularly tough, but on either side of that section there were calm waters, and some of the ocean’s most vibrant and spectacular coral.

Lewis pioneered the first swim across the Red Sea to highlight the impact of the climate crisis on coral reefs which are the ground zero of climate change – barometers that illustrate what happens when we heat up our planet. The swim was timed to coincide with the start of the UN Climate Conference, COP27, taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Lewis’s championing of this fragile ecosystem led to the declaration of the Great Fringing Reef MPA.

The Maldive Islands 

2007 | 4°S 73°E
140km: 10 days

Lewis’s mission was to swim the 140km breadth of the archipelago to draw attention to its fragility. Most of the islands are less than half a metre high. It wouldn’t take long for the entire archipelago to drown in rising seas. After his support boat broke down, Lewis and team were rescued, by non-other than Roman Abramovich. 10 Years after that swim Lewis would return to the same islands. They had changed dramatically. The coral reefs were dying, and along with them the islands’ natural defences. To see people sandbagging the beaches to hold back the rising waters was heart-breaking.

Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa 

2005 | 33°S 25° E
12km: 4 hrs 57 mins

The next step to becoming the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world, was an Indian Ocean swim. Lewis chose Nelson Mandela Bay, off Port Elizabeth on South Africa’s East Coast for a number of sentimental reasons. His grandmother was a descendant of English settlers who landed there generations ago. The other reason was that the bay had been renamed to honour Nelson Mandela, and Lewis wanted to acknowledge the great man. Swimming there felt like completing a circle of history; Lewis’s first swim had been from Robben Island in 1987, where Mandela had been incarcerated. The 16km swim got progressively windier and even when a shark came close to him at the end, all Lewis could focus on was finishing.

Cape Agulhas, South Africa 

1994 | 34° S 20° E
10km: 4 hrs 15 mins

Agulhas is the most southern point of the African continent. It’s where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic, and Lewis wanted to be the first to swim around it. Electronic shark protection devices had not yet been developed. The skipper Trail Whittun was a shark hunter turned conservationist who had witnessed his son being thrust out the sea by a Great White in these waters – fortunately he survived the bite. Still, it was mentally challenging. To steady his mind Lewis focused on counting strokes – hundreds, thousands and then tens of thousands. The 10 kilometre swim went off without incident.

Vast and expansive, the Pacific Ocean is the stuff of legends, and home to some legendary sea creatures, from Blue Whales and Giant Squids to Great White Sharks.

Sydney Heads, Australia 

2006 | 33°S 151°E
16km: 6 hrs 1 min

Lewis chose Sydney for the last (Pacific) leg of his quest to become the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world, swimming alongside Australian swimmer Ben Maguire. It was a 16km swim to the Sydney Opera House, through the Heads. But the biggest challenge lay ahead. Permission hadn’t been obtained for the swim. But, with some distractions from the support team, Lewis made it past the Harbour Master to the finish. He still believes that if you wait for permission, some things will simply never happen. The front page of the Sydney Morning Herald the next day announced: “Pom causes waves in Sydney Harbour.”

He would not have wanted it any other way!

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is one of the world’s most important bodies of water. It drives ocean currents that affect our global climate and provides feeding and breeding grounds for some of our most iconic ocean species.

“No ice. No life.”

Ice Sheet, East Antarctica 

2020 |70°46′ S 8°07′ E
Distance unknown: 10 mins 17 secs
Water temperature: 0°C

When Lewis’s team found a river tunnelling under the ice, he knew this was the perfect location to highlight the rapid melting happening in Antarctica. It was a dangerous swim, with the ice constantly shifting. And in the tunnel, he would be without a safety boat. Lewis swum for just over 10 minutes. It wasn’t possible to tell exactly how far because the GPS watch didn’t work beneath the glowing turquoise, indigo and violet coloured ice. When his team helped him out, Lewis was frozen to the core. One week after the swim, a record high of 20°C air temperature was recorded on the Antarctic Peninsula.

South Georgia 

2017 | 54°S 36° W
1km: 19 mins 01 secs
Water temperature: 2.7°C – 3.6°C

Lewis was the first person to swim in the waters off Grytviken in South Georgia. It is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots but, at the time, only 2% of the waters around South Georgia and the nearby South Sandwich Islands were fully protected. Lewis was swimming to remind people of just what it is that we need to protect. He dove from the slipway in front of the scientific station on King Edward Point and soon settled into a rhythm. As he neared the old whaling station, he swam over whale bones on the sea floor, a reminder that more than 175,000 whales were slaughtered here. After the swim, the UK increased its protection of this area from just 3% to 23% – an increase of 264,000km2.

Now these seas face a triple whammy: industrial overfishing, plastic pollution and climate change, which is why full protection for this crucial ecosystem is critically important.

Half Moon Island, Bellingshausen Sea 

2016 | 62°S 59°W
1km: 17 mins 18 sec
Water temperature: 0°C

This swim would launch the Antarctica 2020 campaign. It would be Lewis’s 12th polar swim, and the first time his tongue froze. At the 200-metre mark he began gulping water along with air, because he couldn’t expel water from his mouth. It was a vicious circle. But turning back was not an option. After the success in declaring the Ross Sea MPA, media attention was heightened and Lewis was determined to keep doing high-profile swims until all the waters around Antarctica are protected. With lots of encouragement and support, he finished the swim.

“Every swim is a risk. But without proper protection, the risk of losing these natural wonders is even greater. And that’s a risk to all humanity.”

Cape Horn, Chile 

2016 |55°S 67° W
1st swim 850m: 16 min 47 sec
2nd swim 1000m: 18 min 22 sec
Water temp: 7°C

Cape Horn, at the tip of South America is one of the most challenging places to swim, as it’s where the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans meet. Lewis and the team planned on completing a long-distance swim around the Horn to get some cold-water training before reaching Antarctica. The 7°C swim went well despite strong currents. But it turned out to be an 850m swim, not the requisite kilometre for a long-distance swim. So, Lewis decided to do the swim again! After a back operation, those two practice swims around Cape Horn, made Lewis feel ready for the next swim and the next campaign – to secure even more protection for the waters around Antarctica.

“You have to immerse yourself in these polar waters to carry their message, but you have to go to the centres of power to get results.”

Peter I Island, Bellingshausen Sea 

2015 | 69° S 90° W
560 m: 11 mins 11 sec
Water temperature: 0°C
Air temperature: 2°C

Fewer than 1,000 people had ever set foot on Peter I Island in the Bellingshausen Sea. Lewis’s mission was to appeal to Russia to support the call for a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Ross Sea, so the swim represented an opportunity to connect with Russia. It was a startlingly beautiful swim. The water was crystal-clear and the icebergs were astonishing. During that swim, Lewis realised that whilst he had been concentrating on promoting an MPA in the Ross Sea, three other large areas around Antarctica were under threat, all of them deserving protection. Immediately following this swim Lewis would fly to Moscow and to Washington D.C. It was the end of an expedition, but the beginning of the campaign of his lifetime.

Bay of Whales, Ross Sea, Antarctica 

2015 | 78° S 164° W
330 m: 5 mins 0 sec
Water temperature: minus 1.7°C
Air temperature: minus 37°C

This was the swim that would finally get the Ross Sea protected. Lewis was about to undertake the most dangerous swim of his life. The weather was abysmal. At minus 37°C, the air was so much colder than the freezing sea. Each time he lifted his arm out of the water into that air it was a drop of more than 35°C. The pain in his hands was more excruciating than the burning agony he felt in the rest of his body. With each stroke Lewis watched himself freeze. After 100m the first digits of his fingers were completely white. After 200m, the white had spread up to the second knuckle, at 300m he couldn’t feel his hands. At 330m he knew it was time to get out of the water. He had undertaken the most southern swim in the world and his message about the desperate need to protect the Ross Sea came to life.

Cape Adare, Ross Sea, Antarctica 

2015 | 71° S 170° E
540m: 10 mins
Water temperature: minus 1.7°C
Air temperature: minus 4°C

Cape Adare would be the first swim in the Ross Sea campaign. Forty percent of the world’s Adélie penguins live in the Ross Sea, and where there are penguins, there are predators. Lewis had learned to throw chunks of ice into the water to replicate the sound a penguin diving in. If no predators surfaced in the next minutes, the coast was clear. At minus 1.7°C, the water was the coldest it could get without freezing over. This would not be a long swim; Lewis decided to swim for 500m or 10 minutes, whichever came first. He swam 540m in 10 minutes. When he tried to grab the rope at the side of the boat, he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel one side of his face. It was as if a dentist had given him too much aesthetic. This was the most painful polar swim he had ever done, followed by the most memorable hot shower he’d ever.

Deception Island, South Shetland Islands 

2005 | 62° S 60° W
1,6 km: 30 mins 30 secs
Water temp: 2°C

This swim still haunts Lewis. Deception Island is a horseshoe-shaped caldera with black volcanic beaches and snow-white peaks. There was once a whaling station here. When the team arrived, it was an icy 2°C, and during the one-mile swim across Whaler’s Bay, Lewis’s core temperature dropped to a dangerously low 33°C (one is clinically hypothermic below 35°C). Beneath the shallow water, whale bones were everywhere. Hundreds of them, jawbones, ribs, long white spines…

This was a turning point in Lewis’s life. He realised that protecting the world’s oceans was what he was meant to do and resolved to make sure that that kind of decimation of marine species would never happen again in his lifetime.

Petermann Island, Antarctic Peninsula 

2005 | 65° S 64° W
1 km: 18 mins
Water temp: 0°C

The purpose of this swim was to monitor what would happen to Lewis’s body during the southernmost long-distance swim ever undertaken. Conditions were extreme. Professor Tim Noakes was on the boat watching the monitors, while Jonathan Dugas wrote vital statistics on a whiteboard to keep Lewis informed as he swam. Suddenly, the information stopped coming. Lewis didn’t know it, but the pen had frozen. Then, Professor Noakes Tim started bellowing: “100 metres to go … 50 to go …” He’d turned from doctor and scientist into coach. After the swim, the team realised that in the rush to avoid getting cold at the beginning they’d forgotten to strap on the watch that tracked Lewis’s heart rate monitor. The swim would need to be repeated. The team didn’t have a basic checklist back then. They do now.

The Seven Seas defined the ancient world. Lewis wanted to see how millennia of human interaction had affected them, and how Marine Protected Areas might protect them.

Mediterranean Sea 

2014 | 43°N 7°E
10 km: 3 hrs 33 mins
Water temperature: 25°C

95% of the Mediterranean’s bottom sea fish are endangered. Here the underwater world looked more like a desert than a garden. World free-diving champion Pierre Frolla accompanied Lewis on this 10-kilometre swim from Monaco – the first of his Seven Seas expedition. The two witnessed first-hand the damage that happens when visiting cruise ships drop anchor; dragging along the seabed, ripping the coral to shreds and leaving scars on the sea floor. Without healthy coral, an ocean ecosystem can’t support fish recovery.

Prince Albert of Monaco is a dedicated champion of Marine Protected Areas: 100% of the seas of the principality have been declared protected.

Adriatic Sea 

2014 | 44°N 15°E
10 km: 3 hrs 55 mins
Water temperature: 26°C

This 10-kilometre swim, accompanied by hard-working photographer Kelvin Trautman, was the second of seven swims, through the Adriatic Sea, along the Dalmatian coast, in a Marine Protected Area outside the ancient city of Zadar. Kelvin swam with flippers lugging his camera in its underwater housing. He did this for about seven kilometres of the swim. Then he saw a cliff that provided a wonderful opportunity to gain a new perspective on the swim. The result is an iconic shot of a human, dwarfed by the ocean. It’s all about perspective. The swim ended near a tuna farm. It takes 10kg of mackerel and sardines to produce 1kg of tuna; Sardines and mackerel are fed to tuna for the rich, rather than the hungry. Have we lost our perspective?

Aegean Sea 

2014 | 37°N 23°E
10 km: 3 hrs 12 mins
Water temperature: 27°C

Paul Gripari, a Greek shipowner, who was about to embark on a swim to raise money to help WWF’s campaign to save the threatened Mediterranean Monk Seal, supplied the support vessel and joined Lewis on his Aegean swim. Both swimmers were shocked to see the state of the sea floor: No sea life, just trash as far as they could see. Although they were close to one of the biggest container ports in Europe, shipping was not directly to blame for the state of this seabed. Ships are just a measure of how much we consume. Responsible ship owners welcome measures to reduce their impact on the oceans, even when it affects their bottom line. For example, ships are now fitted with water treatment plants to keep ballast water from transporting alien species between regions. Lewis’s next swim would be the Black Sea, where he would come face to face with why this is so vitally necessary.

Black Sea 

2014 | 43°N 34°E
10 km: 2 hrs 48 mins
Water temperature: 27°C

Lewis is always pleased to see wildlife thriving in the sea but he knew that the millions of Mnemiopsis he was swimming through meant an ecosystem out of balance. The Mnemiopsis jellyfish were brought here in the ballast water of ships arriving from the east coast of America. The jellyfish bloom wasn’t the only hazard Lewis had to contend with that day. The sea was so turbulent that its surface was frothy. Lewis would never ordinarily swim in those conditions, but the schedule was tight, with only one available day to do the Black Sea swim. Despite the conditions, Lewis was joined by a team of Turkish triathletes. At one stage Lewis spent 10 full minutes swimming as hard as he could and stayed in one spot. But, he found a favourable current and pushed through. That relief came too late for most of the triathletes who pulled out – with the exception of Baras Kazanci, who stayed with Lewis to the end. The pair had a great time racing.

Red Sea 

2014 | 29°N 34°E
10 km: 2 hrs 57 mins
Water temperature: 32°C

At the start of Lewis’s Red Sea swim, the temperature in Aqaba was 55°C. The King of Jordan had generously provided a support boat, so Lewis made a thank you speech. By the time he was finished, it was midday, and in the dry desert, it felt like they were standing under an industrial hair drier. Kids from the local swim team swam along with him, enjoying the exquisite coral thriving in the Marine Protected Area. But as soon as the swimmers left the Marine Protected Area, the coral was grey and dead, the fish all gone. When Lewis had asked about the danger of sharks, the skipper had reassured Lewis that they had all been fished out long ago, a stark reminder of precisely why Lewis was doing the swim: to highlight the need for more Marine Protected Areas, where apex predators, indicators of a healthy marine ecosystem, can thrive.

Arabian Sea 

2014 | 22°N 59°E
10 km: 3 hrs 15 mins
Water temperature: 16°C

The Arabian swim was the penultimate one before the team headed back up north. The plan was to set off from Ras al Hadd, where the Gulf of Oman meets the Arabian Sea. But first, the team needed to find a pilot with knowledge of local waters. A local fisherman, Rabi, obliged and while he could not speak any English, he ended up being one of the best pilots Lewis had ever used. Another highlight of the swim was encountering a group of endangered Green Turtles. Lewis was surrounded by dozens and dozens of them, flipping gently through the water. To see so many near the beaches where they lay their eggs, was wonderful and unexpected. But he couldn’t help but think of the Hawksbill Turtles, which are even more threatened in these waters.

North Sea 

2014 | 51°N 0°E
60 km: 6 hrs 22 mins
Water temperature: 17°C

The last of the seven swims would prove to be the most logistically challenging. Lewis planned to end the swim in London, so he could deliver a petition to the British Prime Minister calling for more Marine Protected Areas in the North Sea. But, the harbourmaster declined to grant permission. Eventually, permission was secured to end his swim at the Thames Barrier, which proved to be highly symbolic. When the Barrier was completed in 1984, its engineers thought it might be raised two or three times a year to protect London from flooding. But in the winter of 2013/2014 alone it was used 48 times. Without that barrier, London would literally drown.

After seven swims in seven seas, many of them near conflict-ravaged regions, the final swim took 6 hours and 22 minutes, over two days and three tides. At the finish, Lewis thought about what Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu had said to him at the start of the expedition:

“Conflict and environmental degradation go hand in hand. But the converse is also true: protecting the environment fosters peace.”