Moves to require large landowners to report on their action to care for nature would help meet legal environmental goals, conservationists argue.

Campaigners have called for an “ecological Domesday survey” requiring large landowners to report on how they are looking after their land for nature.

They say the assessment, so-called for its echoes of the Domesday survey nearly a thousand years ago in 1086 that asked landowners to report on the land they owned, would help deliver a much-needed boost for nature.

Landowners with 1,000 acres or more should be required to submit wildlife surveys and plans for how they will restore habitats, species and carbon stores every five years, which should be made available online to the public, the leading conservationists say.