Ecosimia

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ECOSIMIA (the Ecosistema es Responsabilidad Mia), previously known as SINTRAL, is a Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) and describes an alternative economic structure in Ecuador. Developed within the Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi (an alternative school project in Tumbaco), the first SINTRAL-market took place 1992.

ECOSIMIA serves the trade without official currency and is active for the moment already in 13 provinces of Ecuador. The transactions within a group are provided with a numerical value, and noted on cheques. A copy of these cheques goes to the local bank, which forms the social memory for the group. The numerical value has purely statistic meaning: there are no debts and it is not possible to demand an equivalent to this number. The transactions on regional level are agreed directly between the groups.

Since beginning in 2000 the economic situation of most humans in Ecuador was drastically intensified by the introduction of the US Dollar as national currency. During this crisis, Mauricio Wild (the co-founder of the Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi) resolved to create a decentralized network of groups to trade all over the country. These groups spread particularly in the rural areas of Ecuador. Today there are already about 140 Ecosimia-groups in Ecuador.