Vincent Mariani and Geoffrey Gillet

Vincent Mariani et Geoffrey Gillet

Port-Cros National Park

"Remain a human-sized structure because the objective is not profitability... but awareness!"

Friends since the end of their studies, Vincent Mariani and Geoffrey Gillet met at the turtle village in Gonfaron in April 2016.

Vincent, the Toulon native has just completed his master's degree in Biodiversity Management and is looking for an internship. Geoffrey, originally from Senlis and with a master's degree in paleontology, is looking for a job and is doing his civic service at Soptom*.

As roommates for 6-8 months, we realized that we had the same ethics and similar desires..." says Vincent, "like creating a structure that would aim to raise awareness about the environment.

"We took advantage of an intermediate period to work on the project," continues Geoffrey, who invested a lot of time in setting up the association named S'PECE, which was born in January 2017. The acronym stands for "Sensibilisation à la Protection de l'Environnement et la Conservation des Espèces" which is the essence of the project "with an important axis: the preconceived ideas and the unloved animals: snakes, sharks, foxes, wolves...".

A look at the catalog of activities, workshops and training courses offered by the association is impressive..

We intervene with all the publics, but the children remain our priority, because the future is them! Schoolchildren represent 70% of our activities, but we also work with the BTS in Nature Management and Protection and with the eco-tourism licenses of the University of Toulon.

S'PECE, which also runs stands and workshops at numerous events throughout the region, is now raising awareness among a very large public (about 5,000 people per year). Vincent, who works at the Conservatoire d'Espaces Naturelles-Paca du Var, is the president of the association and Geoffrey is the salaried representative (education and conservation). Requests are pouring in..

But we want to remain an associative structure on a human scale, managed by volunteers, because the objective has never been profitability. We are nevertheless very proud to have built something that works and that the message passes. We are starting to be known, and working with the National Park of Port-Cros through the brand Esprit parc national for our naturalist outing at Cape Lardier. It is an important recognition for us, because it attests to the quality of our services.