One of the project ideas that emerged from the Transition Town workshops last year has taken root and is now developing rapidly. The idea is to create a 'community currency', which could be exchanged for goods and services only in the local area. The proposed currency has been called the 'Baroon Dollar'.

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Localisation is becoming a popular strategy for building economic resilience in the face of big, systemic instabilities such as the ongoing financial melt-down, peak oil and climate change. A local currency helps a community to localise without any need for big changes in behaviour. Because it can only be spent locally, the money keeps circulating in the local economy, helping to support local business, build community, raise awareness of the need to localise, and to create a sense of optimism and hope.

The currency is named after Lake Baroon, a dam between Maleny and Montville. This area used to be known as 'Baroon Pocket' and had special significance to the indigenous people of the region, who held important festivals there to honour and celebrate the bunya nut. It's an appropriate namesake; as the Baroon Lake is an important water catchment in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland area, the Baroon Dollar might act as an economic catchment, helping our money to flow back home.

It's only just getting off the ground, but there's already a website (http://www.baroondollar.org), an incorporated body (the Australian Institute for Community Currencies), and quite a bit of buzz around town. The dollar-backed community currency is a first for Australia. Maleny will be the third Transition Town to have its own currency, following Totnes and Lewes in the UK.

You can help the effort by registering as a supporter of the Baroon Dollar and pledging to buy some when they are launched. Visit the Baroon Dollar website for more info: http://www.baroondollar.org