 The National Integrated Protected Areas System Act is the
national context within which NIPAP operates.
In June 1992, the Philippine Congress passed
the republic Act 7586, providing for the establishment and
management of a National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS)
in order to:
"Encompass outstandingly remarkable
areas and biologically important public lands that are habitats of
rare and endangered species of plants and animals, bio-geographic
zones and related ecosystems, whether terrestrial, wetland or
marine, all of which shall be designated as “protected areas.”
 The act specifies the instruments required for
the establishment and operationalisation of the System by the
Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Establishment involves thirteen specific steps beginning with
Compilation of Maps and Technical Descriptions of Protected Areas
(the first) through public participation processes and production of
an Initial Protected Area Plan (the seventh step) to Presidential
Proclamation, Congressional Action and Demarcation (the eleventh,
twelfth and thirteenth steps respectively).
Involvement of the
European Aid Programme
 In 1995 the Government of the Philippines (GoP)
and the Commission of the European Communities (EC) signed a
Financing Memorandum wherein both parties agreed to contribute to
the implementation of NIPAP. Subsequently NIPAP became operational
with the signing of the Technical Assistance Contract between the
two parties, covering a five-year period to September 2000.
NIPAP Relationship to the Convention on Biological Diversity
 NIPAP has been a manifestation of the Convention on
Biological Diversity. The GoP, on its part, and as the steward of a
significant part of the planet’s biodiversity resources, has
fulfilled part of its international obligations by establishing the
instrument, in terms of the NIPAS Act, which can be used to protect
biological diversity in the Philippines. The EC, on its part, has
fulfilled part of its obligations, as a group of developed
economies, by facilitating funding.
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