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Aspromonte Eco
In January 2004 the director of the Aspromonte National Park in Italy, Tonino Perna, had an idea to revitalize the local economy by introducing a local currency, the Aspromonte Eco. With this money both tourists and locals could by goods and services within the park area without using actual money (euros). This was nothing to do with opposition to the euro, however; this currency merely went alongside the official currency, where it assumed the function of a means of exchange or a unit of measurement, without aiming to substitute traditional money.
In fact, the Aspromonte Eco had a set duration, i.e. they were issued for a certain period after which they would no longer be accepted for transactions. The result was that the transactions that took place within the closed space of the park (and whoever knows the area knows just how ‘closed’ it is) were speeded up. No-one dreamed for a moment that they could buy a car with Aspromonte Ecos, but the park products and services yes, also because the park management itself, recognizing the validity of the complementary money, accepted it to provide the goods and services.
In Aspromonte too, as in Ithaca, the design of the banknotes themselves was highly creative. The design was decided by way of a national competition, but perhaps they might have excelled themselves, having the notes printed by the state mint.
The 2 million Aspromonte ecos (the equivalent of 2 million Euros) were spent mostly on fire prevention campaigns, as well as providing jobs for local young people and the greatest after-effect has been to publicize the Park. Unfortunately the unexpected publicity that the Park received came to the attention of the Bank of Italy, which decide to meant that the Bank of Italy decided to prevent the Park management from furthering the initiative…
(16/06/2006)
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