An environmental activist has gone on trial in Utah for preventing a mass sell-off of public wilderness in 2008. Tim DeChristopher is charged with interfering with a public auction for disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploitation rights on vast swaths of federal land. DeChristopher was arrested after he posed as a bidder and bought 22,000 acres of land in an attempt to save the property from drilling. He could face up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. On Monday, hundreds of supporters marched to Salt Lake City’s federal courthouse.

Protester: “I think that it’s a very clear act of intimidation on their part. What Tim [DeChristopher] did was very, very out of character for not only national politics but definitely Utah politics, and I think that it scared people. I think that it made the structures that are in power feel like people might get an idea that they have a voice in these things and we really, really could change things. We are here as peaceful uprisers to tell the world that we do believe in what Tim did and we do believe that we have a voice and we can change things.”