The CME

Environment Education and Cooperation in the Mediterranean

Who we are
The Centre Méditerranéen de l’Environnement is a non-profit making organisation that was set up in 1989 with the purpose of working in the fields of information, education, environment and sustainable development.
In this context, the CME is certified at a national level as “Centre Permanent d’Initiatives pour l’Environnement” [Permanent Centre for Initiatives for the Environment], a certification awarded by the national union of CPIEs, which is composed of about one hundred CPIEs.
The CME is based in L’Isle sur la Sorgue, near Avignon, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. It has developed an active partnership with a number of European and Mediterranean non-profit making organisations. It has also set up a regional agency in Marrakesh and another in Athens.

Our areas of competence and major themes
The CME brings together about a dozen partners who focus on three main centres of activity:

• The environment and sustainable development
  A true school of nature and eco-citizenship, touching thousands of young people, but also a wider public throughout Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, particularly in the Vaucluse.

• Prevention of natural hazards
  The CME is one of the rare non-profit making organisations specialising in the prevention of natural hazards (floods, earthquakes, forest fires...).
  The CME is active in France and a number of countries throughout the Mediterranean basin.

• International co-operation
  Because we feel European as well as Mediterranean, and solidarity is a condition for the success of environmental politics.

A few of our guiding principles

• An emphasis on local initiatives

We feel more at ease in the field than in international conferences.
As an organisation, we prefer the local to the global.
Over the past 20 years we have woven a network of local initiatives focusing on the environment, a real Euro-Mediterranean discovery and training programme for the environment. This is expressed through a multitude of Euro-Mediterranean environmental campuses and cooperation programmes that we have been able to put together thanks to the European Union.

• Eco-citizenship for young people

For the past twenty years, we have been involved in a variety of teaching activities in the field, mainly involving young people, from primary school right through to university.
We are convinced that, faced with the weight of institutions, we need to rebuild the links between humankind and nature. Citizen-led initiatives are the way forward, particularly those involving young people, integrating a practical approach and sensitivity to environmental issues.

Hoping to meet you soon.
Jean-Baptiste Lanaspèze, Chair of the association