AMAZON © Bruce Watson Bruce Watson Music

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This tragic loss of forests continues. The song has been recorded by several artists including Eric Bogle. It won the Declan Affley memorial Songwriting Award at the 1990 Australian National Folk Festival in Kuranda.

Chorus:
In the time it takes to sing this song,
There’ll be four acres cleared in the Amazon.

The jungle burns all through the night,
They say you can see it from a satellite.
The smoke's so thick for miles around,
They have to close the airports down.
The green of the jungle turns to ?aming red,
As another cattle ranch gets the go-ahead.
Now hamburgers grow where the forest once stood,
Somehow I get the feeling that we've all been fooled.

Chorus

I heard a man on the TV say
That if they take the forest away
The world will be ruined, our future will go,
He's a Kayapo, so he should know.
But this very same man still cuts down trees,
For him it's a question of necessity,
A family to feed, and he must pay the rent,
But when you add it all up it just doesn't make sense.

Chorus

I heard about a man called Chico Mendes,
He fought the cattle ranchers head to head,
He taught the rubber-tappers to stand up and fight,
To protect the forest, to protect their rights.
But the ranchers had their claims to lay,
They wouldn't let a conservationist stand in their way,
One night at his home they took him unawares –
Forty bullets in the back for Chico Mendes.

Instrumental (first half of verse)

(Repeat second half of Verse One)

Chorus

Now hamburgers grow where the forest once stood,
Another twenty years it might be gone for good