Nature Conservancy YPG Team’s-Up with New York City’s Hottest Chefs to Raise Funds for Conservation

Source:The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy’s emerging conservation leaders, the Young Professionals Group (YPG), have organized this event around a cause that every New Yorker can cheer about.A selection of New York City’s renowned chefs has teamed-up with the world’s leading conservation organization, The Nature Conservancy, for an all-star evening of sustainable eats, entertainment and conservation conversations to raise money for the planet.

On March 30, 2011, from 8 to 11 p.m., guests will experience a rustic, lantern-lit wilderness to savor the taste of conservation and sip maple-syrup spiked cocktails under the stars. The Conservancy’s annual benefit, “Wild at Heart: Cooking-Up a Sustainable Life,” with lead sponsorship from Time Warner Cable and Covanta, will start at Tribeca Rooftop and continue with celebrations at the benefit’s after-party, hosted at Tenjune nightclub.

The evening will also feature local, sustainable dishes prepared by some of New York City’s leading culinary innovators, including Barbuto chef and author of A Great American Cook Jonathan Waxman; chef and owner of the Little Owl and Market Table, and winner of the 2011 Bon Appetit “Master Chef Classic” Joey Campanaro; and Jimmy Bradley, chef and owner of neighborhood favorites The Red Cat and The Harrison, and author of The Red Cat Cookbook.

This scenic celebration, designed by Jason Giagrande , FLIK’s Director of Food Service Operations and Events at NBCUniversal and who will also be showcasing a chef table, will include specialty cocktails, live music, celebrity appearances (including New York Rangers Hall of Fame Goalie Mike Richter), a silent and online auction featuring luxury getaways, spa treatments, fly-fishing lessons, and more.

Proceeds from the event will support The Nature Conservancy’s monumental Heart of the Adirondacks project, a globally important forest and freshwater conservation effort that balances ecology and human economy in New York’s Adirondacks. The 175,600-acre project, the Conservancy is linking some 860,000 protected acres within a landscape that offers hope for meaningful preservation of a forest type that historically has suffered more abuses than any other on earth.

Featuring more than 425 miles of rivers and streams, primarily within the Upper Hudson River drainage, as well as over 300 lakes and ponds and 100 mountains, the Heart of the Adirondacks lands stand out for their unique combination of biological, scenic, and economic values.