By NITZ ARANCON Correspondent TRIBAL leaders from Dansolihon, this city, have accused the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of violating a law by implementing a P35-million reforestation project in ancestral domain areas in the city’s outlying villages without the green light of indigenes. Tribal leaders Roberto Cabaring and Winefredo Nacalaban, known to their followers as Datu Makilala and Datu Antongan, respectively, said the DENR project is being implemented in barangays Dansilohon, Tagpangi, Tuburan, Pigsag-an, Pagalungan, Tumpagon, and Tignapoloan. The areas, they said, are part of their ancestral domain, and yet tribal groups in these villages were not consulted in violation of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997 or RA 8371. Cabaring argued that the law is clear that any project, private sector- or government-funded, within ancestral domains require the consent of indigenes. The DENR’s massive reforestation project however is provided in a measure approved by Congress in the aftermath of the typhoon Sendong devastation in 2011. The measure was authored by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of the city’s 2nd District. In Dansolihon and Tagpangi alone, Cabaring said, the DENR project affects some 16 thousand hectares within their ancestral domain. Cabaring called on the DENR and Rodriguez to appease the indigenes and seek their consent first.