A CSIRO report concludes that this result could be achieved under a national scheme costing between $739 million and $1.6 billion a year.

The finding comes out of a study on ways to promote biodiversity conservation.

The study was carried out by the CSIRO for the Australian Conservation Foundation and released last week.

It found that "stewardship payments" — regular payments to landowners to reward conservation management — could play an essential role "in promoting environmental conservation and sustainable resource use".

In response to the research, the ACF called on the Federal Government to allocate about 5pc of the money raised by auctioning pollution permits under the emissions trading scheme to fund a large conservation stewardship scheme.

It also urged the Government to modify drought assistance payments to encourage farmers to plant trees or do other conservation works on land that was marginal but ecologically valuable.

The ACF's rural landscapes campaigner, Corey Watts, said that without more action on private land Australia faced a wave of extinctions.

Some state and federal stewardship programs already existed and were very welcome, but were "hamstrung by woefully small budgets", he said.

A bigger and better funded scheme of conservation payments would appeal to farmers and other landowners and deliver them an extra source of guaranteed annual income.

"The farm of the 21st century will be deriving its income from a range of sources," he said.

"Not just the production of food and fibre, but it could include sustainable energy production and demonstrating that you are looking after soil, water, wetlands and wildlife."

Stewardship payments have been promoted by the National Farmers' Federation for several years as a means of compensating farmers for costly conservation work when complying with native vegetation regulations, with the concept first winning some funding under the Howard Government.