Nearly 20 years ago, Palikapu Dedman was among the dozens arrested and led away in handcuffs when they trespassed at Wao Kele O Puna to protest a plan to develop geothermal energy on the largest intact tract of Hawaiian rain forest in the state.

Yesterday, Dedman choked up as he stood next to Gov. Linda Lingle, Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona and other leaders at a news conference announcing an arrangement designed not only to ensure Native Hawaiians will be able to continue to use the Wao Kele site as they have for generations, but to retain Wao Kele in its natural state in perpetuity.

"It was a struggle for 20 years, and I really appreciate the outcome," said Dedman, president of the Pele Defense Fund. The activist group has focused its energies on ensuring that Native Hawaiians can continue using the 25,856-acre rain forest for traditional religious and cultural practices, from making offerings to Hawaiian gods to picking maile leaves for lei.

Under the plan announced yesterday, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land will acquire the property — about three miles southeast of Pahoa High School — from landowner Campbell Estate and then convey the property to OHA. OHA would initially share management duties with the Department of Land and Natural Resources but would eventually have sole responsibility. OHA intends to transfer the property to a federally recognized Native Hawaiian entity at some point.

The arrangement "hopefully cinches our gathering rights forever — for the babies not born yet," Dedman said.

The Trust for Public Land got Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, to help secure $3.4 million from the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Legacy Program for the purchase. OHA's board of trustees recently voted to pay the remaining $250,000 for the property, and to foot an estimated $228,000 bill for annual management and maintenance.

Lingle singled out Dedman and his group for their decades-long dedication to their cause.

"It's an object lesson for young people that if you believe in something, and you stick with it, and you convince others that your cause is right ... eventually good things will happen," she said.

She noted that Wao Kele is home to 200 native Hawaiian plants and animal species, including some listed as threatened or endangered, and contains 20 percent of the Pahoa aquifer.

"An area that was really a center of strife for a long time ... now can be a center of life going forward," she said.

Apoliona pointed out that Wao Kele was among the 1.8 million acres of crown and government lands that were taken over when the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893.

State land board Chairman Peter Young said the DLNR and OHA will share management responsibilities until OHA can develop the expertise to manage the property on its own. Young said DLNR staff also expect to learn from OHA staff about traditional management techniques. Young said the transition to sole OHA management "is likely going to take years."

The parties have also committed to plugging a geothermal well that has been drilled on the property. Young estimated that would cost $1 million to $2 million.

Josh Stanbro, Hawai'i project manager for the Trust for Public Land, said stipulations in the agreement would make it difficult for OHA, or a future owner, from using the land for nonforest uses.

The state transferred the property to the Campbell Estate in a 1987 land exchange in the hope that geothermal energy could be developed — using the heat underground generated by nearby Kilauea volcano — thus reducing the state's dependence on foreign oil.

But according to an OHA staff report, Wyoming-based True Geothermal Co. pulled out of Wao Kele in the mid-1990s after "attempts at exploration and drilling proved unprofitable." The land has stood idle since.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.