Participants called for a “Domesday Ecological Survey” asking large landowners to report on how they look after their land for nature.

They say the assessment, so-called for echoes of the Domesday survey almost a thousand years ago in 1086, which required landowners to report on the land they held, would help provide a much-needed boost for nature.

Landowners of 1,000 acres or more should be required to submit wildlife studies and plans on how they will restore habitats, species and carbon stores every five years, which should be put available to the public online, say leading conservatives.

Conservationists warn that if the government is to meet its targets of halting species decline, conserving 30% of land for nature by 2030 and planting forests and restoring peat to meet climate targets, new policies to encourage landowners to do more for nature. .

The UK has been described as one of the most depleted countries on Earth.

And while the government has signed up to global targets to conserve 30% of land and seas for nature to help reverse the “catastrophic” decline in biodiversity, its own analysis says 7% of England’s land is effectively protected for nature.

In a letter to environment ministers, conservationists say that over the past three decades, landowners and farmers have been paid £9 billion in payments to protect the environment and the countryside.

But while in some cases this has worked well to support wildlife, many habitats are in decline because of the way they are managed, the letter warns.

Signatories to the letter welcomed the transition to post-Brexit Environmental Land Management Schemes (Elms), which aim to pay landowners for “public goods” such as clean water and habitat creation, but said there was a need for landowners to be more accountable for how they manage the land.

This would ensure that public money is well spent, nature is restored, carbon sinks such as peatlands are repaired and national parks and national landscapes are properly looked after.

And with 16.7 million acres in England owned by just 25,000 landholdings, a small number of private and institutional landowners have “a special responsibility to look after the land on behalf of the wider public”, the letter said.

Under the proposal, landowners holding 1,000 acres or more would be required to submit a map of their land and a baseline ecological study that has since been updated to the Department for the Environment (Defra) every five years.

And landowners should set out plans for how they intend to restore habitats, species and carbon over the next five years, including how they would support farmers on their land to deliver this.

Signatories to the letter include the chief executives of the National Parks Campaign, CPRE and Wildlife and Countryside Link.

Guy Shrubsole, campaigner and author of The Lie Of The Land, who coordinated the letter, said: “England’s wildlife and habitats are on life support: the government accepts that only 7% of the nation is currently properly protected by nature. , and has a mountain to climb to protect 30% by 2030.

“Large landowners have a special responsibility to restore the nature of these wild islands, but not all manage the land well.

“With half of England owned by less than 1% of the population, it is only reasonable that the big estates report publicly on how they will take better care of the land,” he said.