* Guyana president says rich nations must pay to save forest
* Land could be used for other purposes, he warns
By Jonny Hogg
BRAZZAVILLE, June 3 (Reuters) - Developing countries could abandon attempts to protect their forests if Western nations do not provide promised conservation funding, Guyana&${esc.hash}39;s president told a summit on tropical forests on Friday.
"We say we&${esc.hash}39;re going to lock away large tracts of forest and preserve them, but these are forests that could be used for other purposes," President Bharrat Jagdeo told leaders and delegates from 35 countries occupying the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong basins, the world&${esc.hash}39;s three largest stretches of forest.
The conference in the Congo Republic&${esc.hash}39;s capital aims to find ways developing countries with big swathes of forest can influence global policy on climate change and receive funding for management of forests that sink billions of tonnes of carbon, cooling the climate.
Developing countries complain that there is an opportunity cost to protecting natural forest -- it can be cut down for valuable timber or turned into cash crops -- and that richer nations with higher carbon dioxide emissions ought to pay them for conservation efforts that benefit the globe.
"If they (the West) can&${esc.hash}39;t be responsible then ... there will be temptation on the part of many countries ... who have a lot of poor people ... (to) earn more by cutting the trees and planting soya beans or ... rice or doing cattle," Jagdeo said.
Growing awareness about how forests can combat climate change has seen an estimated ${esc.dollar}4 billion pledged to tackle the problem, although much of that money is yet to be disbursed.
"They&${esc.hash}39;re making a conscious choice and unless the developed world recognises this and engages in a true partnership, which means supporting financially, this is not going to work. It cannot work by itself," Jagdeo told delegates.
Guyana lies in the Amazon basin, the biggest of three rainforests that make up 80 percent of the world&${esc.hash}39;s tropical forests. They are home to two-thirds of the world&${esc.hash}39;s land-based biodiversity and sink billions of tonnes of carbon.
However, they are also home to some 300 million people, many of whom live in poverty and rely on forests to survive, a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says.
Deforestation rates have slowed by 25 percent in the last decade but 5.4 million hectares are still being cut down each year, mainly to make way for farming, the U.N. agency says.
Jagdeo said tackling climate change would remain difficult until countries emitting the most carbon, such as the United States, agreed to substantial reductions.
He also criticised some conservation groups for telling developing countries how to manage their natural resources.
"We should aggressively fight those who disturb us. They portray us as stupid, corrupt, not understanding what we are doing. That is far from the truth and many of them are in this business just to make money," he said.
Guyana&${esc.hash}39;s stretch of pristine Amazon forest has some of the highest biodiversity in the world. (Editing by Tim Cocks and Alistair Lyon)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
