Community guidelines for accessing forestry voluntary carbon ... - FAO

Chapter 7: Further help and advice
Due to high costs, a legal advisor might not be within reach throughout
the whole negotiations process. But it is recommended to obtain legal
advice at least at the beginning and toward the closure of the agreement.
The most legally-intensive process that a forestry VCM project developer
is likely to experience is an ERPA (see Chapter 6). For further guidance
on legal issues associated with ERPAs consult the following:
Legal Issues Guidebook to the Clean Development Mechanism, a guide
to legal issues from the UNEP RISO Centre, available from: http://www.
uneprisoe.org/reportbooks.htm. Although focused on the CDM, most
issues covered in this guidebook are equally relevant to ERPAs and other
legal documentation for VCM projects.
The Emission Reduction Purchase Agreements: A seller’s perspective,
produced by Mitsubishi UFJ Securities and Clean Energy Finance
Committee in association with: Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR), Republic of the Philippines and Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Legal advice will cost money. And advice on a new topic like forest carbon
requires specialist knowledge. It is therefore more important than ever
that project developers do not seek such advice on their own, but use
local community groups to find the best value. If good advice is too hard
to find, too expensive, or leaves important questions unanswered, the
best (free) advice is Do Not Invest!
7.4 Financial advice
As outlined in Chapter 3, a reasonably accurate cost-benefit analysis
of the proposed project, followed by confirmation that the necessary
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