1 West African farmers decrease woody cover in savanna-woodlands but promote it in semi-arid 2 savannas 3 4 Martin Brandt *1 , Kjeld Rasmussen 1 , Pierre Hiernaux 2 , Stefanie Herrmann 3 , Compton J. Tucker 4 , 5 Xiaoye Tong 1 , Feng Tian 1 , Ole Mertz 1 , Laurent Kergoat 2 , Cheikh Mbow 5 , John David 4 , Katherine 6 Melocik 4 , Morgane Dendoncker 6 , Caroline Vincke 6 , Rasmus Fensholt 1 7 8 1 Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, 1350 9 Copenhagen, Denmark. 10 2 Geosciences Environnement Toulouse (GET), Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, UMR 5563 11 (CNRS/UPS/IRD/CNES), 14 Avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France. 12 3 Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, The University of Arizona, 1177 E. 4th Street, Tucson, 13 AZ 85721, USA. 14 4 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Mail Code 610.9, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. 15 5 START International Inc., 2000 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009, USA. 16 6 Université catholique de Louvain, Earth and Life Institute, Environmental Sciences, Croix du Sud 2 17 L7.05.09, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. 18 19 20 Words: 21 - Abstract: 176 22 - Main text (including abstract): 2787 23 - Method section: 2327 24