The Barataria Project

Ireland, Scotland, Holland and Spain

In May of 1999 the Feasta committee travelled to Soesterberg in Holland for a conference hosted by the EU funded Barataria project in which Feasta's Richard Douthwaite acted as consultant.

Barataria is called after the imaginary island of Barataria which Silvio Gesell, the radical 1930s economist and progenitor of the alternative currencies movement, invented in his seminal book Die Wunderinsei. The focus of the project is to devise ways of including local businesses in community exchange networks in order to increase their economic impact in depressed areas.

Feasta members enjoyed presentations from Bernard Lietaer and the four participant projects: the 'SOCs', a newly established inter business trading system covering all of rural Scotland, the 3rd Sector Bartering Co-operative in Madrid, Spain, the 'Amstelnet' in Amsterdam and finally, the ROMA system supported by the Enterprise Connaght Ulster.