This is a list of protected areas of the Philippines administered by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)'s Biodiversity Management Bureau under the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992. As of 2020, there are 244 protected areas in the Philippines covering a total area of about – 15.4% of the Philippines' total area.

History

The first important legislation that formed the basis of the current system of national parks and protected areas in the Philippines is Act No. 648, enacted in 1903 by the Philippine Commission. This act authorized the

civil governor Civil may refer to: * Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights * Civil disobedience *Civil engineering * Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a m ...

to "reserve for civil public purposes, and from sale or settlement, any part of the public domain not appropriated by law for special public purposes." A total of eight national reserves had been established on July 26, 1904, pursuant to this law. These are the Lamao Forest Reserve in Bataan, Mariquina Reserve in

Rizal Rizal, officially the Province of Rizal ( fil, Lalawigan ng Rizal), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region in Luzon. Its capital is the city of Antipolo. It is about east of Manila. The p ...

Angat River Reserve The Angat Watershed Forest Reserve is a conservation area that protects the drainage basin in the southern Sierra Madre range north of Metro Manila in the Philippines where surface water empties into the Angat River and its distributaries. It is ...

in Bulacan,

Caliraya Falls Reserve The Pagsanjan Gorge National Park is a national park and tourist zone located in the province of Laguna in the Philippines, approximately southeast of Manila. It protects an area of around a series of gorges on the Bumbungan River which leads ...

Laguna Laguna (Italian and Spanish for lagoon) may refer to: People * Abe Laguna (born 1992), American DJ known as Ookay * Andrés Laguna (1499–1559), Spanish physician, pharmacologist, and botanist * Ana Laguna (born 1955), Spanish-Swedish ballet d ...

, La Carlota Reserve in Negros Occidental, San Ramon Reserve in Zamboanga, Magalang Reserve in Pampanga, and Hacienda San Antonio in Isabela. In the same year, the Forest Act of 1904 (''Act No. 1148'') was adopted that expanded the scope of protected areas in the Philippines. Among the first of such mountain forest reserves to be declared was

Mount Maquiling Mount Makiling (also known as Mount Maquiling), is an inactive stratovolcano located in the provinces of Laguna (province), Laguna and Batangas on the island of Luzon, Philippines. The mountain rises to an elevation of above mean sea level and ...

declared on November 21, 1910. On February 1, 1932, the National Parks Act (''Act No. 3195'') was enacted that formally established the national parks system in the country. Mount Arayat became the first national park in the Philippines established on June 27, 1933, following this act. A series of acts and legislations were passed in the next decades that aimed to further strengthen these policies, including the Revised Forestry Code of 1975 (''Presidential Decree No. 705'') and Forest Administrative Order No. 7. Following the

1987 Constitution The Constitution of the Philippines (Filipino: ''Saligang Batas ng Pilipinas'' or ''Konstitusyon ng Pilipinas'', Spanish: ''Constitución de la República de Filipinas'') is the constitution or the supreme law of the Republic of the Philippines ...

, the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act was enacted which further enhanced the administration and classification of protected areas, and broadened the mandate of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in enforcing its provisions.

Classification

Protected areas in the Philippines encompasses of terrestrial areas and of marine areas. They are managed according to the following classifications described in Section 4 of the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 1992 (NIPAS Act).