Brazil to pay Amazon small farmers to plant trees

* Move may help stave off global pressure

* Lula says it's time to change deforestation habits

* 'We want to be reasonable'

By Stuart Grudgings and Brian Ellsworth

BRASILIA, June 19 (Reuters) - Brazil will pay small farmers to plant trees in deforested Amazon areas to slow rain forest degradation, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday as he unveiled a broad plan to protect the region.

The effort may help stave off growing international pressure on Brazil to reduce deforestation that scientists say spurs global warming, providing alternative livelihoods to poor Amazon dwellers who live off timber exploitation.

"We need to think about how to make those people feel that they will make more money by planting trees than by cutting them down," Lula said in an interview after a ceremony to inaugurate the "Green Arch" program to protect the Amazon.

"The small (agricultural) producers that plant trees in areas that were degraded, we're going to pay them $51 per month." He did not offer further details on the program.

The proposal appears similar to schemes proposed by global conservation groups that Brazil has largely resisted that would pay rain forest residents to prevent deforestation that causes 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.