Guatemalan Indigenous Land Rights Activist Wins the Goldman Environmental Prize

For standing up to the government and nickel miners expanding into the land of his 270-member farming and fishing village, Rodrigo Tot, 60, won the largest award going for grassroots environmental activists.

"An indigenous leader in Guatemala’s Agua Caliente, Rodrigo Tot led his community to a landmark court decision that ordered the government to issue land titles to the Q’eqchi people and kept environmentally destructive nickel mining from expanding into his community," summarized Goldman Prize.

2017 winners: mark! Lopez (sic) of the U.S.; Uroš Macerl, Slovenia; Prafulla Samantara, India; Wendy Bowman, Australia; Rodrigue Katembo, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Tot.