EVERYTHING starts from the ground up - our climate is part of our food chain.

Our trees are the earth's rain gauges that build up clouds and keep the moisture, shading the land.

Trees are precious for bird and insect life and provide shade for our cattle, sheep and horses.

I believe we are breeding out our food chain that feeds us.

I was born during the depression, in Callignee South. I lived through the 1939 and 1944 bushfires.

Just Dad, my brother and I scrambled for our lives into the maize paddock, which was damp.

I was glad my mother and her sister had gone to Morwell and Traralgon for two days by horse and jinka. Good timing.

Every waking minute was taken up with work - trapping rabbits for pennies and food, chopping wood for home fires, cooking, milking cows, ploughing and planting spuds.

No holidays and boredom. Hands were always doing something. We walked to school - 11km was normal.

Alan Duncan, address withheld