This month in the first of a series of articles commissioned by CDKN for publication, Mitch Moxley from IPS explores China's great green wall, a major reforestation programme in the Guardian Environment Network. The ‘Wall' is the largest human-made forest designed to stop rapidly encroaching deserts and combat climate change, set to stretch 400 million hectares by 2050.

Back in August, Yolanda Kakabadse was interviewed by The Ecologist magazine. As well as leading the CDKN Latin America team and advising the Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano ( FFLA ) in Ecuador, Yolanda has also recently become the President of WWF. The short interview examines her views on the doom and gloom spread by the world media about climate change, the relationship between governments and NGOs and the upcoming Climate Conference in Cancun, Mexico.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) business survey, with contributions from the Sustainability and Climate Change team at PwC, has just been released. TEEB is a global study initiated by the G8 and five major developing economies and focusing on ‘the global economic benefit of biological diversity, the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the failure to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation'. PwC made a significant technical contribution to the UN's major study on TEEB for business and a number of PwC specialists have performed supporting analysis and are co-authors in the report.

Meanwhile, a review by CDKN's Executive Chair, Simon Maxwell, of the World Development Report 2010 has been published in the journal Climate and Development. The journal was produced in collaboration with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

And finally, Huma Beg from LEAD Pakistan has produced a documentary on the flooding in the plain of the Indus, in Thatta, Pakistan, where millions were forced to leave home and take refuge in the world's largest necropolis Makli Hills.