United for Wildlife's World Wildlife Day Global Celebration Event in New York

It was an honour to be invited to have a booth for my rhino horn demand reduction initiative for the Behaviour Change Renaissance at this year’s hashtag#WorldWildlifeDay Global Celebration Event, organised by The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales United for Wildlife, CITES, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Deloitte and Quantifind. Thank you sincerely to Miriam Ratkovicova and Slav Shcherbakov, CAMS, CFE and thank you to Rob Campbell and United for Wildlife for having me.

Held at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, the event featured a panel discussion on combatting IWT.

#WorldWildlifeDay is personal for me, it’s the day before my birthday, and in 2016, CITES held their first hashtag#WorldWildlifeDay competition, for which I painted “In Our Hands: Elephants”, commemorating rangers who died protecting them. It was finalised, becoming a series that was first publicly exhibited at Art Basel Miami 2016 alongside my Service K9 Angel. An impactful exhibition which resulted in a TED Talk invitation on those paintings & my developing concept of using oil paintings to tackle the root drivers of IWT.

The Behaviour Change Renaissance is the ultimate realization of that concept; the Rhino Horn Demand Reduction Initiative is the project whose initial concept was presented on the TED Stage in South Dakota with my K9 Angel. I anchor the speech around that hashtag#WorldWildlifeDay painting!

After 2016, CITES first relaunched that art contest again 2022, for hashtag#WorldWildlifeDay 2023 whose theme was Partnerships for Wildlife Conservation. In 2022 while I was developing my research report for the rhino initiative, I was shocked to hear of the murder of ranger Anton Mzimba. When I saw CITES relaunch their art competition, given the theme, I wanted to commemorate Anton. With Timbavati's permission I painted Anton centered to recognize his courage for this cause.

I painted representatives from different fields, including a portrait of Ivonne Higuero the Secretary General of CITES. I had the opportunity to give her a print of the painting and share the story with her at this event!

On March 3, 2026, we started the day with the first United for Wildlife NA SteerCo meeting of 2026, held at Deloitte NYC Headquarters in 30 Rockefeller Plaza. It was also great to be at this meeting in person this time!

The Behaviour Change Renaissance leverages the power of art and cutting edge insights from science to deliver initiatives that not only meet the needs of the present extinction crisis, but leave a lasting cultural impact for generations to come.

The fight against illegal wildlife trade depends on one thing above all else: collaboration. It was great to meet so many inspiring people at the hashtag#WorldWildlifeDay event, thank you to all who showed interest in my rhino horn demand reduction project. 

Looking forward to see what we can make happen in the future!