Local Currency

The Touchstone November 29, 2009

Marco Lam

These are times of immense transition and we have a clear calling to create a sustainable and resilient community. The rallying cry of "Buy Local" is heard loud and clear by those who realize the importance of a local economy but we lack a crucial mechanism for supporting a robust bioregional infrastructure. Regional currencies have a strong tradition in our shared American history and recall a time when the local economy was both resilient and decentralized.

Our new private voluntary barter currency, called the "Gaian" is a one ounce .999 fine silver piece that has a community barter value of "fifty". This means a merchant is willing to exchange fifty dollars of goods or services for a 1oz Gaian.

Everyone in our community benefits from using Gaians. Consumers benefit from a 10% discount on purchases when they buy our local currency from our Community Barter Coordinators. Businesses benefit from increased patronage and from the loyalty of customers committed to buying local. Almost everyone has underutilized knowledge, skills and time that can be engaged creatively if they have a medium of exchange. In the spirit of supporting our greater community, we also support non-profit organizations and local farms by allowing them to purchase Gaians at a discounted rate and sell them at full face value to their supporters.

It takes committed citizens working in their own communities, bioregion by bioregion, to create the needed systemic change that will lead to regenerative economic practices. Over time, these practices will support ecologically responsible production of goods as well as community self-reliance. Local currencies are a primary tool to bring about such a change. Gaians are about building community and a bioregional culture while supporting a local economy and a more equitable distribution of wealth .

Gaians are a tool for community empowerment with the intention of generating a society that connects each individual to their creative powers and their responsibility for creating a future that we all want to live in. We guide producers, merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for a regenerative economic future. A future for their community which honors both our natural home and our local culture.

A bioregional currency nurtures and protects the local businesses that accept the currency while discouraging consumption at big corporate retailers. This builds stronger relationships and a greater affinity between the business community and the citizens of the Boulder area. Gaians will not, and are not intended to, replace federal currency. The intent is to create accessible employment and abudance within our local ecosystem and community.

The touchstone of value for the Gaians is the immediacy of creating abundant circulation of trade within our community despite an unpredicatable global economy.

Those in our community who choose to use the currency make a conscious commitment to buy local first. We believe that by taking personal responsibility for the health and well-being of our community we are creating a regenerative local economy and an engaged civic life.