It is with great sadness that we heard about the recent death of Donald MacIntyre, one of the most knowledgeable & passionate advocates of species-rich meadows. An innovative thinker, he set up Emorsgate Seeds in 1980, now the UKs largest supplier of native wildflower seed. One of our Steering Group members, Ann Skinner, first met Donald in the late 80s when he had just invented the first brush harvester and she was buying meadows for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. It was the start of a mutually beneficial collaboration, as Donald was harvesting seed from species-rich meadows in North Wiltshire.
Donald was the after-dinner speaker at our conference in 2014, describing his work over several decades; a brilliant and inspiring talk. He published his comprehensive book "Restoring the Wild" in 2024 and the second National Meadows Conference was recently hosted at his farm in 2025. Fortunately, Emorsgate Seeds passes into the capable hands of three of his daughters who will carry on with the same passion, knowledge and commitment as their father. We wish them well and offer them our condolences; the nature-conservation community has prematurely lost a great champion.
