Birds of prey are to be given greater protection under a package of measures to be assessed today at an international conference.

Ospreys, merlins and honey buzzards are among the migratory birds of prey likely to benefit from a deal involving 60 countries. More than half of the 77 migratory species likely to come under the agreement are threatened worldwide or regionally.

Pressures on the bird populations include hunting, poisoning, power lines and the loss or reduction in quality of the habitats they depend on. Climate change is perceived as a further threat because of the damage it is expected to wreak on habitats and the changes it could cause in the distribution of species.

Delegates from European countries will be joined by counterparts from Asia and Africa at the meeting at Loch Lomond. Each of the governments of the countries involved in the conference, which lasts until Thursday, has already accepted that an international agreement is needed.

The level of threat to each of the 77 species, the main causes of the threats and the measures that are best able to improve the birds’ prospects will be debated by the delegates, who are seeking a draft deal. A full agreement will, conservationists hope, be signed next year at a conference in the United Arab Emirates.

Joan Ruddock, the Climate Change and Biodiversity Minister, will be at the meeting and said that there was a clear need to ensure that the migratory birds of prey had cross-border protection. “There is no doubt that these magnificent birds are under serious threat,” she said. “The agreement would address the future problems that climate change will bring to these migratory birds, and has the potential to contribute to our objectives of halting the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.”

Britain has 15 species of birds of prey of which ospreys, honey buzzards, Montagu’s harriers, hen harriers, hobbies, rough-legged buzzards and whitetailed eagles are migrants.

The merlin and marsh harrier are present all year round but some migrate.

Europe has 41 species of bird of prey and 28 of them are threatened, with ten facing a worldwide battle for survival. The red kite is one of Europe’s ten most underthreat birds of prey and has suffered a serious population decline. But the species has been reintroduced to Britain, where it is not a migratory bird, and is doing “incredibly well”, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

The Saker falcon and the Egyptian vulture, which is largely a scavenger but classified as a bird of prey, are the species causing the most concern in Europe, having suffered recent rapid declines. The rarest is the Spanish imperial eagle, found only in Iberia.

Mark Avery, the RSPB’s director of conservation, said: “The UK is a perfect venue to showcase the turbulent ups and downs of the conservation of birds of prey. There are many lessons that can be learnt by looking at our history with these fabulous birds.

He said that 90 years ago at least four species – the whitetailed eagle, marsh harrier, goshawk and osprey – had died out as nesting birds in the UK, “but thanks to efforts from conservationists, including the RSPB, the populations of all of these species are soaring once more”.

Ten most threatened

Lesser kestrel, Falco naumanni
Saker falcon, Falco cherrug
Red kite, Milvus milvus
Pallas’s fish-eagle, Haliaeetus leucoryphus
Steller’s sea-eagle, Haliaeetus pelagicus
Black harrier, Circus maurus
Greater spotted eagle, Aquila clanga
Spanish imperial eagle, Aquila adalberti
Eastern imperial eagle, Aquila heliaca
Egyptian vulture, Neophron percnopterus

Source: Convention on Migratory Species

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