Joe Demicoli revives "Chop Chop Kemmuna" after Comino tree felling is approved

Joe Demicoli, who co-released Kemmuna Airways in the late 1990s, has uploaded an updated version of the hit parody song following the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA)'s approval of plans to cut down hundreds of trees on Comino.

Comino is the smallest of the inhabited islands in the Maltese archipelago and sits between Malta and Gozo. It is designated as a protected nature reserve and a Natura 2000 site, which is the reason any development there draws scrutiny out of proportion to its size.

Demicoli released Chop Chop Kemmuna via YouTube, a few days after the ERA voted in favour of granting a removal permit for around 800 trees.

The permit concerns the removal of trees rather than the construction itself, and that distinction is at the centre of the objection. NGOs argued at the hearing that deciding on tree clearance while the development it is tied to remains unsettled puts the decision in the wrong order, because the trees would be gone before the project has final approval.

Comino's vegetation is low and sparse — the island is small, exposed and thin-soiled — so tree cover there is limited in extent and slow to replace. That is the practical reason a removal figure in the hundreds is treated as significant on this island in a way it would not be on a larger one.

"Wow, we're going to Comino, the trees go chop chop, we play with the bulldozer, our hands are dirty," the song's chorus says.

The song, released on Monday, criticises those who should be a voice in favour of the environment, saying: "Judas is happy, and Christ has been betrayed."

Using a parody to make the point is a well-established idiom in Maltese public debate. The original song worked because it set an upbeat dance tune against an unpleasant subject, and the updated version uses the same device: a cheerful chorus describing bulldozers and felled trees.

The original Kemmuna Airways tells the story of two men excitedly heading to Comino, expecting pristine beaches and coconut palms.

But, as their flight to the island draws to an end, their hopes turn sour when they catch the stench from the island's pig farm. Just like the 1998 version, the spoof song, which uses the music of Vengaboys' We're Going to Ibiza, also refers to pigs.

The 1998 song's joke was about expectation versus reality: visitors anticipate an untouched island and encounter a pig farm instead. We're Going to Ibiza supplied the melody, which is part of why it travelled quickly — a familiar tune with completely rewritten lyrics is the simplest form of parody to spread.

"There is no profit from trees unlike cement, chop chop Comino - 'what fun', the pigs said," the new version's lyrics say.

On Friday, the ERA's board was almost unanimous in its decision, with the NGO representative being the only member to oppose it.

The board's near-unanimous vote, with the NGO representative the sole objector, is the detail likely to be cited on both sides. Supporters of the permit will point to the margin; critics will point to who dissented, and to the fact that the objection came from the seat specifically there to represent environmental interests.

During Friday's hearing, NGOs opposing the permit said the ERA should hold off on deciding on the removal of 800 trees because the development linked to their removal - 16 bungalows, 44 swimming pools and a 71-room hotel (PA/04777/20) by Hili Ventures - has itself not been given the final go-ahead.

The scale of the linked project is what gives the tree-clearance decision its weight. A 71-room hotel with 44 swimming pools and 16 bungalows represents intensive construction on an island that currently has very little built infrastructure, and the water, waste and traffic implications of that are the substance behind the objections.

That permit, which Moviment Graffitti said involves an intensive construction project on a highly protected nature reserve, is currently the subject of a legal challenge by several NGOs.

A legal challenge by several NGOs means the development permit is not settled even though the tree permit has been granted. Until that is resolved, the practical position is that the two decisions sit in an unusual order: clearance approved, construction contested.

Demicoli released Kemmuna Airways together with Augusto Cardinali as part of an album with 12 other parody songs.

Parody of this kind does not change a permit, but it does something the formal process does not: it circulates the argument in a form people repeat. A chorus is easier to remember than a planning application number, which is why satirical responses to planning decisions tend to outlast the news cycle that produced them.

Whether the trees come down now depends on the legal challenge and on any conditions attached to the removal permit. Approval of a removal application does not by itself start work, and in contested cases the interval between a permit and implementation is usually where the argument continues.

For the moment the episode has produced something unusual: a planning dispute being argued partly through a pop song, with the 1998 original and the new update bookending nearly three decades of argument about what Comino should be.