VOLUNTEERS from an action group held a demonstration on Saturday in an attempt to stop a fast food chain from damaging the environment.

Member of Greenpeace, spoke to people outside Burger King on Cornmarket Street in Oxford, calling on the company to stop 'flame-grilling the Amazon forest'.

Forest fires in the Amazon have been raging throughout the summer, some of which campaigners say were being lit deliberately to clear land for raising animals and growing crops such as soya beans.

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Burger King admitted in a statement to the BBC that it knows some of the beef it sells in the UK has trace amounts of soya in the feed and the fast food giant also said on social media that some of the chicken it serves is bought directly from Brazil.

Emma Tinker from Florence Park, took part in the protest at the weekend.

She said: “I joined Greenpeace volunteers today, because although the Amazon is more than 5000 miles away, there’s a Burger King on our doorstep in Oxford.

"Frying burgers shouldn’t mean frying the planet’s rain forests too. This fast food chain is fuelling forest fires in the Amazon forest with its meals so we’re telling Burger King to stop sourcing meat and soya from Brazil until the Amazon and its people are protected.”

Seventy members of the public stopped to sign the petition, despite the rain. And 12 wrote personal messages to Burger King such as, ' 'Take responsibility: be on the right side of history' which will be delivered to its HQ by spider monkeys.

People also wrote about why they are reducing their own meat consumption.