Once the protocol is ratified and comes into force, these countries must reduce their greenhouse gases emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the period 2008-2012. The Prima Klima afforestation project is intended to work under the Clean Development Mechanism. It offers an opportunity of generating carbon tradable offsets which will eventually be distributed between the province of Chubut and Prima Klima Foundation over a period of 50 years. Local Chubut environmental groups have opposed the project. They fear the it would increase demand for lenga wood, resulting in more logging of the native tree.
Lenga wood is in demand by furniture makers and artisans.
Greenpeace Argentina is fiercely opposing the Prima Klima project. Almost all the trees planted in each country are native to the location in which they were placed, Prima Klima says. Juan Carlos Villalonga, coordinator of the energy campaign of Greenpeace Argentina, points out that the Prima Klima project has not been approved by the Argentine Office of Joint Implementation which oversees projects proposed for emissions credits under the Kyoto Protocol. At present, the law which backed the agreement of the parties involved in the project was declared unconstitutional in August by Judge Alejandro Javier Panizza in Sarmiento, Chubut. The judge made the ruling in a lawsuit brought by Chubut public defender Marcela Colombini.