Brazil to survey Amazon rainforest

Huge swathes of rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon
have been cleared by loggers

The Brazilian government has announced that it plans to undertake the huge task of recording an inventory of the trees in the Amazon rainforest.

The Forestry Ministry said the census would take four years to complete, and would provide detailed data on tree species, soils and biodiversity in the world's largest rainforest.

The last exhaustive survey was carried out more than 30 years ago.

In that time the rainforest has become increasingly threatened by logging.

The Brazilian government made a commitment in 2009 to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80% by the year 2020.