Billionaire Slim launches $100 mln Mexico green project

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men, on Thursday launched a joint 100 million dollar project to protect Mexico's environment with the government and the World Wildlife Fund.

"I believe that looking after the environment will be one of the big generators of jobs in the future," Slim said on a beach on Mexico's Caribbean island of Cozumel at the launch of the alliance.

"Whether there's a crisis or not, the cost of looking after the environment and reducing risks is more advisable than not doing anything," Slim said.

The alliance aims to promote sustainable development in one of the world's most biodiverse countries.

Six priority regions, including northern deserts, tropical Caribbean beaches and eastern jungles -- representing 30 percent of the country -- are involved in the project, and funding from both the public and private sectors will later increase, said Mexican Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada.

Carter S. Roberts, CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, lauded the involvement of Slim -- who is worth some 60 billion dollars, according to Forbes Magazine.

"It's more important beyond the money. It's the fact that the private sector, civil society and the government are working together," Roberts told AFP.

"In the developing world it's a very new model."

The selected regions for the project are the Gulf of California, the Chihuahuan desert, the Mesoamerican Reef, Oaxaca, the Monarch Butterfly Region and Chiapas, including the Lacandona Forests and El Triunfo reserve.