June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Carlos Slim’s donation of $50 million to start an environmental project in Mexico sets an example for other business leaders from emerging markets, said Carter Roberts, president of the World Wildlife Fund.

“You can’t overestimate the importance of Carlos Slim in Mexico making this commitment,” Carter said on a beach in Cozumel today where he signed with Slim an agreement to establish a $100 million fund dedicated to Mexico’s environment. “Our hope is that it inspires other people in other countries, like Brazil, like Indonesia, like China, to do the same.”

The project will seek to reverse environmental harm to six regions in Mexico, including jungles in Chiapas, reefs in Baja California and the nesting ground for monarch butterflies in Michoacan. The World Wildlife Fund will raise the other half of the $100 million from foundations and donors, Carter said.

Slim, through his charitable Fundacion Carso, said he’s prepared to donate more as the goals of the project are met. The plan is to create alternative economic activity for people in environmentally sensitive areas to keep them from damaging wildlife and wilderness. In Michoacan, locals are making a living from tourists attracted to the butterflies, instead of illegal logging, he said.

“It’s an initial investment to get the project started,” Slim said in Cozumel. “The possibility of increasing it is being contemplated.”

Mexico’s biodiversity ranks fourth in the world and its wildlife needs urgently to be protected, Roberts said. The United Nations estimates Mexico loses 240,000 hectares (593,000 acres) of forest per year from logging, said Omar Vidal, head of the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico.

Third-Richest

Slim’s donation marks the future for emerging market countries by combining private business, government and activists to help protect the environment, Roberts said.

“The reality is that we can’t solve these problems without everybody,” he said during the signing of the agreement. “It’s a moment when the stars are lining up.”

Slim, 69, acquired control of Mexico’s telephone monopoly in a 1990 privatization sale, helping him amass a fortune that has made him the world’s third-richest man, according to Forbes magazine. In addition to Telefonos de Mexico SAB, he controls Latin America’s biggest wireless carrier, America Movil SAB.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Black in Cozumel at tblack@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 4, 2009 16:03 EDT