Elinando B. Cinco By Elinando B. Cinco   There are a few probable reasons why the country’s protected areas – there are 240 of them – can easily be intruded into by scheming persons under the guise of “investors.” Why is this so? Under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources department order 2007-17, the protected areas are allowed to be used for agro-forestry, ecotourism facilities, camp sites, communication and power facilities, irrigation canals, aquaculture, and for weather and other scientific monitoring facilities. As one can see, those are open areas that can be possibly exploited by unscrupulous groups, including poachers. Recently lifted for development by private and government groups, those potential undertakings may be open for abuse. It is very probable that the mess the present Boracay Beach Resort fell into can be considered as typical of the ways to exploit and abuse a protected area. The Aklan world-attraction beach paradise is not alone. You have a number of similar inducements in the Visayan region and in the province of Palawan. (As I was writing this column piece, Tuesday morning, there was a front-page feature story, with photo, of more or less 100 pieces of ostensibly illegally cut logs floating in a La Paz river in Agusan del Sur. “It’s a mockery of the nationwide ban on logging of any form issued via executive order in 2011,” rued concerned citizens in the area.) Obviously, those grey areas enumerated above are an attraction to local and national politicians. Ready to exercise influence-peddling in behalf of their constituents, politicians are on the ready to facilitate the granting of access to these protected areas to their benefactors. And in some cases, they themselves may become the proprietor of the development. Another probable reason cited in the earlier part of this piece that may jeopardize a sustained protection of our protected areas is the virtual absence of an enforcement group solely mandated to police those areas. Like, for example, what they have in the United States – those forest rangers and environment wardens – guarding their endangered animals, fish, fauna, trees, rivers and lakes, and others – all with police powers. The protected areas of the Philippines cover 4.07 million hectares of land and 1.38 million hectares of marine areas. A special agreement is granted to groups or individuals by the DENR “to make full use of protected areas in line with the principles of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation by serving as guide in their appropriate zoning.” It is also meant to provide access and economic opportunities to indigenous peoples, tenured migrant communities, and other stakeholders.