Each Spring, I am inspired anew when I attend the Audubon Society’s Women in Conservation luncheon at The Plaza in midtown Manhattan. Which is really important, since as a woman working independently in the environmental field, it’s not always easy to see the impact (long- or short-term) of my actions and work. To be in the same room with hundreds of women making change – and the people who support them – always gives me renewed vigor and focus for the warmer season (when all I want to do is going outside and play!).

This year’s honorees included The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, President of The Regeneration Project / Interfaith Power and Light, L. Hunter Lovins, President of Natural Capitalism Solutions, and Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of New York City Department of Transportation. It was so interesting to hear them speak about their work, from bringing people of faith together for the environment (Bingham), to how we can use economics to make the case for the Planet (Lovins), to how a visionary team can come together in a city as complex and political as NYC and yes – make it a truly greener, healthier place to live (Sadik-Khan).

Look for more coverage of each of these leaders in upcoming Eco Chick features.

I was especially heartened by the “Women Greening the City” recipients, a group of additional women who were honored en masse at the luncheon with a round of applause:

“The distinguished “Women Greening the City” represents the many women who have worked and continue to work tirelessly to transform and green the physical landscape of New York City’s urban habitat.

These individuals have made spectacular contributions to New York City’s greening effort through volunteering, grassroots outreach, education programs, faith-based organizing, goverment departments, media outreach, local business support, and non-profit work.”

Here are just a few examples of the amazing women working in NYC today:

Audubon’s Women in Conservation Program recognizes and salutes the unwavering commitment of these exceptional women in conservation.

Annie Novak is founder and director of Growing Chefs, field-to-fork food education non-profit; the Assistant Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden at the New York Botanical Gardens, and co-founder and farmer of the nation’s first greenroof vegetable farm, the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn, New York. A lifelong vegetarian, Annie is a passionate advocate for ecology within good agriculture.

Britta is helping more than 35,000 urban residents grow their own fresh food ingredients at home. While participants learn new high tech organic veggie growing techniques, their experience contributes to agricultural biodiversity conservation. Her company, Windowfarms, both sponsors an open citizen research project online and locally manufactures vertical hydroponic indoor food gardens. Her participatory environmental work has been featured at MoMA, the Whitney, the Museum of Science & Industry and the Smithsonian. Her newest project launches in New York this Fall.

As Director of Adopt-a-Highway for the NYC Department of Transportation, Ms. Ferreira is involved in recruiting sponsors to fund the greening of 362 miles of arterial highway. Currently, 240 or 66 percent of the 362 adoptable miles are adopted by sponsors. She maintains an inspection statistics to ensure a high level of performance and quality of cleaning. Her dedication and efforts has made a tremendous difference in the cleanliness throughout the city.

Keep up with this amazing organization on the group’s Facebook page and the Women in Conservation Twitter feed.

Photos courtesy of Audubon Society except where indicated.

Last night, I put away my winter knits; my fave black wool sweater, my grandma’s green button-down with the giant collar that still smells vaguely like her perfume, the head-warming hats and the rotating cadre of scarves I wear from October-April were all packed away and stored until next Autumn.

At the same time, I pulled out my summer knits. Knits in summer? Yes! Maybe it was because I wrote about Ambika’s gorgeous handknit bikinis yesterday, but I love the juxtaposition of what is usually thought of as a ‘winter’ material or texture when temps are hanging in the 70′s and 80′s. Still not convinced? Check out some of the pretty fab (and always sustainable) knitted wonders I found while doing some online window shopping.

What about a knit necklace? This one from Etsy seller Erica Hogenbirk is made from beach stones and neutral yarn.

These handmade knit shorts are just totally unexpected and fun. Via Robot Recenze on Etsy.

Or how about these handknit bangles from Knits by Vara on Etsy – work the summer neon trend in your own way!

This beautiful summer sweater by Eileen Fisher is a luxurious hemp knit. Perfect for layering over a swimsuit or sleeveless dress.

Wool and the Gang is a Peruvian knitwear collaborative that provides fair wages to women in South America. I love this Tassel top!

This Organic by John Patrick sweater is ideal for too-cold offices blasting with A/C.

We’ve written about Ambika before (check out the handmade angora legwarmers here) and these hand-knit bikinis are another project by the talented and visionary Ambika Conroy. This is a woman who knows bikinis – one of her pieces was even featured in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, as well as other major fashion mags.

Obviously, knits are her thing – in fall and winter the angora (which comes from her own rabbits she lovingly raises), and for summer the perfectly crafted cotton swimsuits that she crochets up to order.

The cross-knot top in red is a stunner, paired with the bikini bottoms (with sweet doll tassels!) to match.

If you are worried about whether you can really swim in these suits, the answer is yes! I asked Ambika about that right off the bat as an avid lake and ocean swimmer myself. She said the knit holds up beautifully in the water and since she loves to jump in the water herself (and wears her own designs) the fact that the suits are totally wearable/usable/swimmable – and would stand the test of time – was important to her.

The sliding triangle top is decorated with (removable) Peruvian bamboo and turquoise embellishment.

Needless to say, I love these gorgeous pieces, and Ambika is even looking into natural dyes (and how to make them keep their color over multiple dippings and sunnings) to make her process even greener than it already is.

As written on her site, “Each Bikini is custom made, so please allow 2-4 weeks for it to be hand crocheted and mailed to you.” Some suits have jewelry elements, and others wooden beads. But you can order them as simple or embellished as you like.

The Ridged Cross Top is my absolute fave – not only to wear while swimming, but even better, layered under sheer or low-cut tops. It can be adjusted several different ways, including to make it a cleavage-booster.

I love my Prancing Leopard Toulouse jumpsuit. Here I am, practicing a bit on my front lawn. I look a bit goofy, but I’m definitely happy. Goofy = Happy, don’tcha know?

Sevda and Bert Holland couldn’t find what they wanted in yogawear, so of course (don’t you do this?) they made their own. Prancing Leopard was born out of the couple’s need for genuinely stylish, but still functional yoga wear. And they would only make it superethically, of course. That means organic cotton (but not just any organic cotton…read below), a program to benefit animals in need, connections with local artisans, and more do-gooderness. Yay! We love a company that thinks beyond the obvious and into HOW they can truly make a positive impact while filling a niche.

Reversible Rhineu tank top

Prancing Leopard is all about the details – from attention to fit (I have both the jumpsuit shown above and a reversible top, and let me tell you, they feel GOOD), to looking quirky-great to being truly functional in a yoga-doing situation. The details extend to a proprietary super-soft quick-drying high-performance “peached” Turkish organic cotton jersey with a four-way stretch fabric. It’s called Zeugma® and it is as awesome as it sounds. (By quick-dry I’m talking about sweaty fabric drying while in savasana, so you walk out of class feeling – but not looking – like you just kicked your own butt).

The Carmague one-piece is perfect for layering, as seen here, or solo for a hot yoga class.

Besides being made from organic material, Prancing Leopard, which is sold via yoga studios (and their online store), has its eye on other ways to benefit the world. According to the site, “Locally, a percentage of online sales goes to the buyer’s studio of choice. On a global scale, we offer handmade artisan pieces, in addition to our core line, to benefit underserved women’s communities who make them. To support our shared environment and community, a percentage of our profit goes to the Snow Leopard Trust, dedicated to saving the rare and beautiful snow leopard from extinction.”

The cropped Harem Pant is one of Prancing Leopard’s perennial best sellers, and you can probably see why. Supercomfy, stylish and original.

And they make men’s yoga clothes too! My boyfriend has their supersoft Instanbul pant, and they are gorgeously flowy, cut perfectly and he has worn them to death!

The Kuray High/Low Sweatshirt is a great layering piece for post-yoga class or would work with a great pair of jean shorts and sandals for a summer evening at the beach.

If you are a regular Eco Chick reader, you know that I have long been a huge critic of both diamonds and the “Wedding Industrial Complex” and as such, love to provide my readers with great alternatives to the traditional wedding ideas and products.

Brilliant Earth has long been providing ‘conflict-free’ new diamonds, and now the company is offering a selection of even Earth- and people-friendlier vintage diamond rings.

The lovely art deco “Florence” ring features step-cut emeralds.

According to the company’s site, “Most rings in the Brilliant Earth antique collection originate in the 1900-1940, with some pieces over a century old! At any given point, Brilliant Earth has over a hundred antique pieces on hand – and new pieces are constantly being added in response to the high demand.”

The Snowflake ring features vintage European-cut diamonds.

A ring whose carbon footprint and impact occurred a hundred years ago or more is always going to be less impactful than anything new, with the added bonus that your ring will be superunique and certainly won’t look like everybody else’s solitaire diamond engagement rings, since as you can see, the styles run the gamut, and are much more interesting and detailed than modern rings.

If you want to go even more eco-friendly with your engagement, skip the ring altogether (after all, it is a very modern invention, and a sexist one at that.)

The square, pave Lorena ring is graphic and timeless.

The fact that I am writing this post from an actual hammock should demonstrate to you my dedication to the art and craft of hammocking (yes, it’s a verb, at least in my world – as it should be). Growing up, I availed myself of the large hammock in my backyard on a pretty regular basis – after mowing our acre of lawn, when I needed a mid-Summer’s nap, or when I needed to get away from my grandma’s pretty demanding routine.

Looks like a bit of bliss, no?

Yellow Leaf Hammocks make the variety of hammocks you see below, which includes a number of colors, patterns and styles (love the chair version – perfect for reading!) and they also have impressive social and sustainable cred, including economic health, environmental stewardship, social equity and cultural stewardship.

A hammock on a boat! Genius!

The company calls themselves a ‘social enterprise, not a charity’:

In Southeast Asia, hill tribes such as the Mlabri are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of society. Hammocks have been the means to securing civil rights, combating deforestation, creating basic infrastructure and achieving financial security for hill tribe villages in this region of Northern Thailand.

As a hunter-gatherer society with no concept of land ownership or relationship with the outside world, the Mlabri way of life was devastated when the land around them was claimed and deforested. Impoverished, without citizenship, and enslaved by opportunists, their future appeared bleak.

Yellow Leaf aims to engineer a turnaround in which marginalized ethnic groups such as the Mlabri apply their artisan talents towards creating a micro-economy that will elevate them from their former state and maintain their cultural identity, with the added benefit of eradicating toxic farming methods within the communities we partner with.

Love the ‘hammock chairs’ that are shaped to provide a bit of support.

Get your hammock on AND support people in need with honest work. How much more awesome can it get?

All photos courtesy of Yellow Leaf Hammocks except where indicated.

Maria Moyer is a sculptor and communications strategist with an eye for the ignored. Most recently, she has turned her gaze to plankton, the microscopic ocean plants that are part of the foundation of the food chain. I’m loving her collection for the home retailer west elm, and was curious about her perspective on art-making, the environment, communications and of course, plankton!

Eco Chick: Your most recent sculptural work features designs from plankton. Why the interest in what most people probably think of as whale’s food?

Maria Moyer: I created a body of ocean-inspired porcelain sculpture over a year ago that references plankton in texture and form. These are sculptural, non-functional pieces–all of which are hand-built, one-of a kind pieces. Some of these were originally shown at Rogan/Loomstate as part of a show called SRF+ CTY during fashion week.

In recent weeks, I launched a line of functional porcelain vessels and tealights that I designed exclusively for west elm, called The Plankton Series. I brought Oceana into the collaboration, and 5 percent of every sale of the Plankton Series goes to Oceana. My goal was to use the vast reach of this large, design savvy retailer to pique interest in plankton. I’m grateful for this Plankton Pulpit provided to me and to Oceana, by west elm and I’m delighted that people might have to use the word ‘plankton’ when they purchase a piece. : )

Plankton are microscopic plants and animals that give us half the world’s oxygen (more, in fact, than our forests); they also feed most of Earth’s creatures: from shrimp to whales, and there are 3 billion humans who depend on fish and seafood. If those facts don’t grab you, add to that, the exquisite beauty of plankton–from diatoms to algae to microscopic animals. Inspiring? I hope so. It is endlessly inspiring for me.

EC: What was your favorite thing that you learned from working with and learning about plankton? Would you say all your work is inspired by nature?

MM: I’d say that I am inspired by nature. Period. However, my work is mostly about giving voice to the obvious but less understood. Sometimes it’s the things right in front of us that we don’t see, right? I’m finishing a body of work that’s about common tools and another series that’s inspired by plant cells.

EC:How do you think art can be used to encourage people to think about the natural world in different ways?

MM: In my other life as a communication strategist, I often think this way, i.e., how to move others and make them think this way or that way. In creating things, however, I make the work first for myself. It’s an internal dialogue for a long while before I’ll ever share it. Then, after I attempt it, it might take several tries until it’s worthy to share. I don’t start out thinking about how to effect another person. I pay attention to the material and my original intention. With a little luck, I might like what I make. No matter what, I’ll learn something. That’s the point.

As a designer, as in this project for west elm, I had a responsibility to get it right. The work I’d done before I tried to design the west elm line, helped a lot. The internal team at west elm was great too and added quite a bit.

Learn more about Maria Moyer’s work on her website and follow her on Facebook for upcoming shows and collaborations.

Images courtesy Maria Moyer.

I got the chance to speak at a TEDx event a few months back and wanted to share this video of how this site came to be. It’s been almost seven years since I founded Eco Chick, and the media landscape for green news and information has changed significantly. But we are still spreading the good work about how to be green and gorgeous! Thanks so much for reading.

Starre Vartan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Eco Chick and its sister site, EcoChick Escapes, all about ethical travel and style.She’s the author of The Eco-Chick Guide to Life (St. Martin’s Press), a pro blogger and oft-quoted green living expert who has been featured in the New York Times, Elle, Glamour and Self magazines.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

I had traveled much of the world, but had never been to the glorious Pacific Northwest until I met Simon, (now) my boyfriend of two years. In fact, his Oregon provenance was immediately appealing – surely I’d get to check out this new-to-me place if we got together – when I first heard of him from a friend. (His deep intelligence and mix or adorable and handsome later sealed the deal).

Sure enough, I’ve gotten the chance to visit twice now, and Washington and Oregon turned out to be even more naturally beautiful, more smartly peopled than even I had anticipated. During my trips to Seattle and Portland, Corvallis and Eugene, I found a part of the world I had always dreamed existed – a world of 90′s grunge sensibility crossed with tech influence and an outdoors-first style and attitude – and the food! The food was, for want of a better all-encompassing term, kickass.

Assorted oysters, mostly from local waters.

Which brings me to one of the finest meals I’ve enjoyed, an apps and drinks extravaganza at The Walrus and the Carpenter in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. Since I visited, the restaurant has been featured on the front of the New York Times’ Travel Section, Frommers and others.

Thanks to Theresa and Zach, my boyfriend’s brother and sister-in-law, we ate there not so long after it opened, and took a seat outside on the patio where we commenced a several hour fest of libations and small dishes. The food was so fresh, so full of terroir (the French name for the ‘taste of a place’) that I went to sleep that night dreaming of what I’d just eaten – and woke up the next morning wishing for more.

Radishes!

Travelling is, after all, about being in a place that’s different from where you usually live – whether that’s a subtle difference or a profound one is as much about how varied the food actually is – and how much care and attention one puts into noticing it. Eating at a restaurant that puts the focus on foods within a given watershed, foodshed, state or region can lend a sense of what that place is, essentially.

In Seattle that’s a cold and briny bite of seafood followed by a quaff of full-bodied red wine from grapes that are comfortable with a damper clime. It’s fresh vegetables that tell of the season without a glance at the calendar, and a wholesome, tangy vibe to the food that keeps the damp out. There’s a hint of mushroom everywhere, as if the whole mist moistened inlet is secretly harboring those things that grow from the fallen. It is all quite earthy. And Ocean too, of course.

A classic moscow mule in a hammered copper tumbler.

To see more on this story, click over to our sister site, Eco Chick Escapes.

All images by Starre Vartan.

Directed by Alastair Fothergill (“African Cats” and “Earth”) and Mark Linfield (“Earth”), and narrated by Tim Allen (ABC’s “Last Man Standing”), Disneynature joined forces with the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) for a special “See ‘Chimpanzee,’ Save Chimpanzees” program. For every moviegoer who sees “Chimpanzee” during the film’s opening week (April 20-26, 2012), Disneynature will make a donation to JGI through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund in order to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. For more information, visit Disney.com/Chimpanzee.

Want to win a DisneyNature Chimpanzee plush, tote and book?
Simply sign up for Eco Chick’s newsletter here. We’ll randomly select two winners from our newsletter subscriber base. Giveaway is open until Giveaway is open until midnight on Thursday, April 19th, 2012. Good luck!

Giveaway Includes:
• One Oscar Plush
• One Disneynature Chimpanzee The Making of the Film Book
• One Reusable Tote Bag