Sir

Your News story “Restrictions delay fossil hunts in Ethiopia” (Nature 410, 728; 2001) omitted to report some of the things I told your reporter during our conversation at the American Association of Physical Anthropology meeting in March.

First, the Ethiopian authorities granted me a palaeoanthropological permit last year for the Gadamaitu region, which includes Galili. My team did not displace Yohannes Haile Selassie from this site: his permit was for the Mulu Basin area, which does not overlap with the Galili area. I offered him both cooperation and the opportunity to continue his work with my team in our permit area, but he refused both offers.

Second, when I applied in March 2000 for the second time for a permit for exactly the same site, the Centre for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa gave me a permit for the Gadamaitu/Galili region for the next three years. If Yohannes Haile Selassie had already held a valid permit for this area, I would not have obtained mine from the issuing authorities.

Third, Ethiopia is a proud, independent country and its authorities are fully capable of writing rules and regulations protecting its cultural heritage. These rules should be respected by foreign scientists; to ask, as your reporter did during our interview, if I had something to do with formulating these regulations is an insult both to me and to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is working hard at improving democracy and is willing to open its doors to the international scientific community through these new regulations, which I personally fully support.

We stand by the facts as reported in our story — Editor Nature