The living dead: acknowledging life after tree death to stop forest degradation Thorn, Simon Seibold, Sebastian Leverkus, Alexandro B. Michler, Thomas Müller, Jörg Noss, Reed F Stork, NigeL Vogel, Sebastian Lindenmayer, David B. In a nutshell: • Public awareness about the importance of deadwood for biodiversity is lacking • Removal of dead and dying trees often results in major losses of forest biodiversity, but elicits little or no public response • Halting forest degradation requires protecting and restoring key attributes of forest structure, especially large deadwood structures with long persistence times • Enhancing public understanding of the ecological importance of deadwood is critical ABL and SV received funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Environmental Foundation, respectively. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Global sustainability agendas focus primarily on halting deforestation, yet the biodiversity crisis resulting from the degradation of remaining forests is going largely unnoticed. Forest degradation occurs through the loss of key ecological structures, such as dying trees and deadwood, even in the absence of deforestation. One of the main drivers of forest degradation is limited awareness by policy makers and the public on the importance of these structures for supporting forest biodiversity and ecosystem function. Here, we outline management strategies to protect forest health and biodiversity by maintaining and promoting deadwood, and propose environmental education initiatives to improve the general awareness of the importance of deadwood. Finally, we call for major reforms to forest management to maintain and restore deadwood; large, old trees; and other key ecological structures. 2020-11-06T12:48:59Z 2020-11-06T12:48:59Z 2020-09-03 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Thorn, S., Seibold, S., Leverkus, A. B., Michler, T., Müller, J., Noss, R. F., ... & Lindenmayer, D. B. (2020). The living dead: acknowledging life after tree death to stop forest degradation. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. [doi:10.1002/fee.2252] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/64108 10.1002/fee.2252 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Wiley; Ecological Society of America