Large carnivores present enormous challenges to conservation. The expansive wild areas that are often needed to conserve intact carnivore communities are becoming increasingly scarce on the African continent. As human pressure for natural resources mounts, combined with scarce resources spread over a large land area, effective conservation in Africa calls for a rigorous approach to setting priorities, both for the conservation of carnivores and of biodiversity overall. There are three major reasons why focusing a priority-setting exercise on carnivores holds significant promise for conservation benefits. First, there have been few efforts to assess priorities for action on a continental scale and across all species - an exercise made all the more necessary in the face of dwindling resources available to devote to conservation action. Second, carnivores deserve primary focus as some of the most vulnerable elements of biodiversity. Third, because intact carnivore communities signify those biological communities that have been the least affected by human-induced landscape change, carnivores might be useful instruments for identifying geographic areas that offer prime opportunities for biodiversity conservation, or alternatively where the battle is being lost in the absence of intervention. Such background knowledge can inform: 1) priorities for action, 2) where an expansion of programs into new areas might be of value, and 3) where existing programs might be strengthened.