How did you get permission to enter Yanomami lands from the Venezuelan government?
Securing a permit to do this project was very hard. I met an official from the Venezuelan Office of Indigenous Affairs and kept in touch with him over the course of many months. He eventually urged me to contact the director of indigenous affairs directly, which I did. For several months I tried to convince them to grant me a permit. Eventually they told me to go to Venezuela, but even after I got to Caracas there was an entire week of meetings. The Venezuelan government didn’t want anyone reporting on the controversy. They were still conducting their own investigation and hadn’t allowed a single journalist into the upper Orinoco River since late 2000. But they eventually granted me and photographer Les Stone permission to accompany them on a government visit to the upper Orinoco.
