Rodolfo Flores

Alarmed by the devastating effects of rampant logging in their region, Rodolfo Montiel Flores, a campesino (subsistence farmer) from the Guerrero village of El Mameyal, began organizing other campesinos in the surrounding communities to protest the rapacious logging. Montiel and his colleagues formed Campesinos Ecologistas de la Sierra de Petatlán y Coyuca de Catalán (Farmer Ecologists from the Mountains of Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán) and began registering complaints. Flores was eventually jailed for his environmental activism. After two and a half years in prison on false charges, Montiel, was freed from prison on Nov. 8, 2001 by order of President Vicente Fox. In his first visit to the United States since his release, Montiel gave a speech at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, and was the recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.