Conservation conflicts across Africa

There is increasing evidence that areas of outstanding conservation importa nce may coincide with dense human settlement or impact. We tested the gener ality of these findings using 1 degrees -resolution data for sub-Saharan Af rica. We find that human population density is positively correlated with s pecies richness of birds, mammals, snakes, and amphibians. This association holds for widespread, narrowly endemic, and threatened species and looks s et to persist in the face of foreseeable population growth. Our results con tradict earlier expectations of low conflict based on the idea that species richness decreases and human impact increases with primary productivity. W e find that across Africa, both variables instead exhibit unimodal relation ships with productivity. Modifying priority-setting to take account of huma n density shows that, at this scale, conflicts between conservation and dev elopment are not easily avoided, because many densely inhabited grid cells contain species found nowhere else.