Protected Lands and Group Land Buy-ups?

While searching for my first land, I found a plot that overlooked a huge patch of protected land. Perfect because I wanted to build and have a nice scenic overlook/view.
As I expanded my land I wanted to ask about the possibilities of purchasing small portions of protected lands that bordered my property. I was told that protected lands will not be for sale and would not be.
So I moved to a new sim and found land that had protected lands around it.
Again, I asked about a small plot next to my lands and was given the same answer.
I visited my old lot and found that all the protected land had gone up for sale but had been bought by a HUGE land company and was being sold for exorbitant amounts.
The lands I bought went for more than $16L per m2, which is heinous.
The lands for sale around me, by those same people /groups are equally frightening.

1) How can I be sure that the protected lands around me will not go to sale as the other property had and how can I get the jump on buying these lands if they do go up?

2) How are these huge groups finding out about and getting these lands before the normal person has a chance to buy the lands from SL and reasonable prices?

It's obvious these people are buying the land for pennies then reselling them at major profit.

Help us average guys, please?

1) How can I be sure that the protected lands around me will not go to sale as the other property had and how can I get the jump on buying these lands if they do go up?

This isn't possible, under normal circumstances. I'm not sure why protected land was allowable for sales; the only thing I can think of is that it somehow went public and someone used a public land finding script to purchase it. Protected land is -never- meant to be up for sale.

2) How are these huge groups finding out about and getting these lands before the normal person has a chance to buy the lands from SL and reasonable prices?

See above.

I'm sorry to hear this happened, but from time to time there will be issues with the system that allow these kind of glitches to happen. If you could please PM me with the sim names and coordinates of where this protected land was located, I'll see if it is something that needs to be recovered.

On a final note, we may -occasionally- decide not to road a certain area and set previously protected land up for sale - but always by auction so everyone gets a chance at it. This has happened maybe once in the year I have been involved with the content side of things for Linden Lab, and generally it is well before land is available for purchase by the public in the first place.