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Famous for its iconic wildlife, Africa is home to nature and cultures that can be found nowhere else on Earth. Unfortunately, however, this precious natural and cultural heritage is threatened by unprecedented population growth that has driven the colonization and exploitation of formerly sparsely populated or uninhabited natural areas, particularly in West Africa.

Despite decades of major investments in conservation-related foreign development aid, West Africa's majestic rainforests and savannas have increasingly been converted to plantation agriculture and pasture, and steep losses in wildlife include 85% declines in mammal abundance, even inside protected areas.

In Ghana, for example, logging to export timber, mining for gold and other precious metals, and the replacement of rainforests with cocoa (Theobroma cacao) plantations to supply the global chocolate industry have driven the destruction of >80% of its Upper Guinea forests, although they constitute a critical global priority biodiversity hotspot.

In regions with high human population densities such as West Africa, protected areas may host the only remaining intact natural ecosystems, but their natural resources are being ever more diminished due to inadequate law enforcement and corruption.

Nature conservation efforts are essential to maintaining protected areas, mitigating wildlife declines, and realizing the United Nations' sustainable development goals. However, evaluations of the effectiveness of conservation strategies are rare, and conservation success stories even rarer.

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