The environmental news website TreeHugger has chosen Salt Lake City climate activist Tim DeChristopher as its 2011 Person of the Year.

DeChristopher is serving a two-year prison sentence for disrupting a 2008 Bureau of Land Management lease sale for oil and gas development. His conviction and sentence are on appeal while he is in a Northern California federal prison.

The site lauded DeChristopher for "courageous activism" and noted that previous winners have included scientists Sylvia Earle and Jane Goodall. Its announcement of the award pointed out that a federal judge blocked jurors from considering the fact that, after the auction, the Obama administration rescinded the leases DeChristopher sought to thwart.

TreeHugger is a part of the Discovery Co., which produces Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. Editors did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the award.

Brandon Loomis