everything from energy provisioning and food production to medicine and other harvestable materials. Non- material contributions consist of non-material flows from the environment to people and include things such as educational and volunteer opportunities, recreation, and cultural values. The benefits of using the IPBES framework for this assessment were twofold. First, the spectrum of sub- categories outlined a generalized, standardized rubric by which to understand the complex interactions between practices and policies and the natural environment of the U.S. Northeast. Because the framework is standardized and supported by an international group of subject-area experts, it can be compared to other studies in the future. Second, the IPBES framework’s three broad categories— regulating, material, and non- material contributions — includes important resources, services, and commodities as well as the interdependencies of social, cultural, spiritual, and experiential contributions (Díaz et al. 2018). These services are conceptualized as “nature’s contributions to people,” which serves to frame economic and natural science measures of ecosystem services to scale beyond individual parcels and landowners.
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