IFAW World Wildlife Day International Youth Art Contest: 2026 Round Closed; Next Edition Not Announced

Status update: there is nothing to submit right now. The official IFAW contest page opens with a clear notice: “This year’s Art Contest is now closed.” The 2026 round of the World Wildlife Day International Youth Art Contest took entries until 1 February 2026, and the winners were announced on 3 March 2026, the date of World Wildlife Day itself. If you arrived here planning to upload a drawing before the February deadline, that window has closed. IFAW’s official contest page does not announce a next edition, theme, or deadline. Any future due date not published by IFAW should be treated as unverified.

That is worth saying plainly, because the contest page is still live and still displays the 2026 theme, rules, and age brackets. It reads like an open call to a skimming eye. It is not one. The same URL is where the next round will appear, so it remains the right page to bookmark — just not the right page to act on today.

What happened in the 2026 round

The eighth annual contest ran on the United Nations World Wildlife Day theme for 2026: “Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Conserving Health, Heritage and Livelihoods.” Artists aged 4–18 were asked to put plants into their wildlife art rather than treating them as background scenery. IFAW opened submissions on 16 December 2025 and closed them at 11:59 p.m. GMT on 1 February 2026.

The response was large. More than 4,200 entries arrived from 117 countries and sovereign areas. The grand prize went to Jia Yoo, age 15, from South Korea, for a painting of an Asian elephant set alongside turmeric — a plant valued for both healing and cultural significance, which is about as direct a reading of the theme as an entry could offer. IFAW also named winners in three younger age brackets: Mantra Shreedi of Germany in ages 4–6, Sophie Ee of Singapore in ages 7–10, and Sesali Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka in ages 11–14.

The finalist pool came from China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Twelve semi-finalists were chosen by a panel drawn from IFAW, CITES, UNDP, the Jackson Wild creative forum, the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, and Paramount Pictures, with guest judges including the syndicated cartoonist Jim Toomey and the previous year’s contest winner. Finalist artwork was featured on wildlifeday.org and shown during the official World Wildlife Day celebration in Geneva.

Two things in that list matter for anyone preparing a future entry. First, the judging panel is not an art faculty — it is conservation organizations plus media professionals, and their published criteria are artistic skill, originality, and connection to the annual theme. Second, the reward is placement and audience, not a cheque. IFAW has not published prize money for this contest, which is why this listing’s award field points you at the official source rather than naming a figure.

At a Glance

What is known about the next round

IFAW has not announced a next round on the official contest page. There is no verified future deadline, theme, opening date, or application form to record. The completed 2026 page remains useful because it shows the type of brief the contest used, but it must not be read as an open call. The annual connection to World Wildlife Day gives the programme a recurring structure, yet recurrence is not an announcement. Families, teachers, and youth organisations should wait for a new IFAW page or call before treating any future date or rule as real.

That distinction matters because the live page is still designed as a contest page: it retains the invitation to young artists, the theme explanation, and the upload language below the closed notice. A reader who scrolls past the notice could mistake the old instructions for current application access. This entry keeps the instructions as a record of the 2026 cycle and labels the page historical so the status is clear.

What the contest actually offers

This is a visibility opportunity, not a funding one. Winning work is shown at the official UN observance in Geneva and published on wildlifeday.org, in front of an audience of conservation officials, treaty secretariats, and development agencies. For a young artist, that is a genuinely unusual credential — it is not a school prize or a social media repost, it is a place in a formal international observance.

For teachers and youth group leaders, the value is different. The brief forces research. A child who wants to draw a medicinal plant has to find out which plants their own region uses, who harvests them, and which animals interact with them. That work sits across biology, cultural history, and civics, and it produces something the child can point at afterwards. The official 2026 materials do not state a cash award amount. The published recognition is the presentation of finalist and winning work at the official World Wildlife Day event and its use in IFAW communications. That is meaningful exposure, but it should not be described as financial support.

For older teenagers, a finalist placement is a portfolio line with an institution behind it, which is more durable than most youth competition results when applying to arts programmes.

Who this suits

The contest rewards specificity, and the winning entries show it. An Asian elephant with turmeric is a particular animal next to a particular plant with a documented relationship to human medicine. A generic forest scene is not.

That points at three kinds of participant. The child who already notices things — who watches insects, keeps a plant journal, or helps in a garden — starts with observations that are hard to fake. The teacher or club leader who wants a project with real research underneath it gets a brief that supplies one. And the teenager who wants to argue a conservation point visually gets a stage where that argument is actually the subject, not decoration.

Local knowledge travels well here. Entries from 117 countries competed in 2026, and finalists came from eleven of them across four continents. A young artist in Nigeria drawing a plant their grandmother harvests is working from something no one else in the pool has.

Rules as they stood in the 2026 round

Confirm all of this against the official rules when the next contest opens — details have moved between years.

Entrants had to be aged 4 to 18. Work had to be original and had to respond to the published theme; in 2026 that meant wildlife shown together with plants, not wildlife alone. Media were restricted to traditional hand-drawn techniques — markers, crayons, colored pencils, and paint. The 2026 page specifically calls for these traditional media. Do not convert that into a general rule for any future edition; read the new call if IFAW announces one.

Submission was electronic only, through an upload form on IFAW’s site. The public 2026 page does not publish a separate file specification, artist-statement requirement, or next-cycle rule set, so those details should not be invented for a future call. The official results page does confirm that finalist work was presented at the World Wildlife Day celebration and that winning pieces appeared in international communications from IFAW and its partners.

Using the archive constructively

While no new call is open, the 2026 brief can still support a useful classroom or family exercise. Visit a botanical garden or a herb market. Interview an older relative about plants they use or used. Keep a sketchbook of local animals and the plants they actually eat, shelter in, or pollinate. This kind of observation gives an artist something specific to say if IFAW announces another theme, without pretending that the next theme is already known.

When a new call eventually appears, read its theme carefully before drawing anything. The 2026 theme was specific: medicinal and aromatic plants, health, heritage, and livelihoods. That focus asked artists to show a relationship between wildlife and plants, not to submit a generic wildlife portrait. A future edition may ask for something different.

Once the call opens, sketch at least three compositions before committing. Pick the one that reads in about three seconds: one clear subject, one clear relationship, room around the focal point. Finish the artwork with a week to spare so paint can dry and edges can be repaired.

Then digitize properly, because this is where good work loses. Scan at 300–600 DPI if you can. If you must photograph, use even indirect light — an overcast day or a north-facing window — keep the camera parallel to the paper so the image is not trapezoidal, and crop to the edges. Adjust brightness and contrast lightly; do not filter the piece into something the artist did not make. Save the original file at full resolution in case a higher-quality version is requested later.

Finally, write two sentences: what the image shows, and why it matters. Judges assess connection to the theme, and a short statement that names the plant and its use does that work explicitly instead of hoping the picture carries it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I enter right now? No. The 2026 contest closed on 1 February 2026 and the winners were announced on 3 March 2026. No new round is open.

When does the next contest open? It has not been announced. The official IFAW page reviewed for this entry still concerns the completed 2026 round and does not provide a later opening date or theme.

Is there prize money? IFAW has not published a cash prize for this contest. Recognition takes the form of display at the official World Wildlife Day event in Geneva and publication on wildlifeday.org. Check the official page for any award terms when the next round opens.

Who can enter when it reopens? The 2026 page states that youth artists aged 4–18 were eligible. It does not announce a later age range; check the new official call if another edition is published.

Does digital art count? It did not in 2026 — that round accepted only traditional hand-drawn media. An earlier round had a separate digital category. Read the medium rules for the specific year.

Where do winning artworks end up? Finalist work is featured on wildlifeday.org and shown during the UN World Wildlife Day celebration in Geneva, and winning pieces appear in international communications from IFAW and its partners.

How to Apply

There is no open application. The following records the 2026 process rather than inviting a submission:

1. Confirm that the artist was 4–18 years old and that the work fit the 2026 World Wildlife Day theme, “Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Conserving Health, Heritage and Livelihoods.”
2. Create an original artwork by hand using the traditional media listed by IFAW: markers, crayons, colored pencils, and/or paint.
3. Include plants within the wildlife artwork. IFAW’s 2026 guidance asked artists to show wildlife together with plants, especially a relationship involving habitat, use, or the links between people, animals, and plants.
4. Submit the work electronically by uploading it through IFAW’s art-contest page. The official page did not accept the 2026 entry after 1 February 2026.
5. Treat 1 February 2026 at 11:59 p.m. GMT as the completed cycle’s cutoff, not as a future deadline. The page now says the contest is closed.
6. If IFAW publishes a new edition, stop using this archived procedure until the new page confirms its age range, medium rules, theme, upload route, and closing time.