HILO » The state has acquired 1,336 acres formerly in private hands above Hilo, including 550 acres of high-quality native forest plus barren areas of old lava flows, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources announced yesterday.

The narrow, 4-mile-long parcel, part of lands known as Kukuau 1, will soon be added to the state's Forest Reserve System, the department said.

The land starts nine miles above Hilo and stretches uphill on Mauna Loa from there. It is about two miles south of the cross-island Saddle Road.

The land was purchased from a group of owners headed by attorney Ivan Lui-Kwan for $1.25 million. The federal government provided $875,000 from its Recovery Land Acquisition Program, and the state provided $375,000 from the Legacy Land Conservation Program.

The private, nonprofit Hawaii Island Land Trust served as a “;bridge”; between Lui-Kwan and the government agencies, said the trust's Lands Committee Chairman Larry Baird. The trust nurtured the transaction and provided technical assistance, he said.

The proposal to preserve the land from development began in 2005, the state said. “;DLNR was approached by Ivan Lui-Kwan, whose interest was to sell this property to a conservation agency, ensuring that old-growth koa and ohia forest would be protected forever,”; the state said.

Such protection agreements are complex, and this one involved a “;myriad of eligibility criteria,”; the state said. The purchase was finally completed on June 29, they said.