Guatemalan farmer, activist, and evangelical pastor wins Goldman prize

A 60-year-old farmer, activist, and evangelical pastor, Rodrigo Tot, was awarded a prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in recognition of his Q'eqchi community's struggle against Guatemalan mining operations. Goldman praised Tot's "intrepid leadership of his people and defense of their ancestral land."

Tot, leader of the Agua Caliente "Lote 9" community in El Estor in Guatemala's eastern department of Izabal, has fought for decades to try to make the government recognize locals' right to fertile farmlands that are also coveted by mining interests for nickel and gold deposits that lie beneath.

Two previous Latin American winners of the Goldman prize, Honduran activist Berta Caceres and Mexican indigenous leader Isidro Baldenegro, have been murdered over the last thirteen months.