Across Africa, climate constrains vegetation recovery rather than accelerating degradation (1985–2022)

Climate-change attribution of land-cover transitions has long focused on degradation acceleration: the hypothesis that warming intensifies forest loss, savanna clearing, and desertification. We test this across continental Africa (1985–2022) by linking 30-m land-cover transitions (GLC_FCS30D; nine transition pathways across eight intervals) to Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) series from CHIRPS precipitation and TerraClimate potential evapotranspiration. Of cumulative continental drought severity, 26.0% is attributable to atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) rather than rainfall deficit, rising to 44.4% in the Sahara-Sahel and 41.9% in Mediterranean Africa. Using a stricter stable-pixel reference (96.4% retention), Modified Mann-Kendall (Hamed-Rao) trend tests, and Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) correction, we show the dominant climate signature is not accelerated degradation but systematic restriction of recovery. Continental Cohen's d is essentially zero for degradation (+0.020) yet clearly negative for recovery (−0.178): woody regrowth, grass-to-shrub succession, and bare-to-vegetated revegetation systematically required wetter-than-typical antecedent conditions. The Recovery Suppression Index is significant in the Sahel (−0.484, p = 0.048) and, at 24–60-month accumulation timescales, in three regions (Sahel, West Africa, Southern Africa), indicating dependence on multi-year water deficit consistent with ecosystem memory. Five FDR-significant decadal shifts post-2005, in Sahelian and Southern African recovery and in Mediterranean, Sahelian, and East African agricultural transitions, show the signal has intensified in the recent climate-change era. These findings imply that policy frameworks predicated on passive recovery, including AFR100, the Bonn Challenge, and natural-climate-solution carbon-offset accounting, may overestimate the recovery potential of African drylands under continued warming.