Regionally connected cores are the largest of the design elements. They are broad areas of regional significance that have high internal landscape connectivity. There were 5 regional cores that were identified.
Ecosystem services are the benefits that people receive from ecosystems. Examples are abundant in the Appalachians, from necessities like clean drinking water and food production to sustainably harvested forest products and the region’s nature-based tourism industry. They also include the sense of home that communities find in rural landscapes, the values that Americans place on conserving biodiversity, and the benefits the global community receives from forest carbon storage.
