Scotland's threatened wildlife faces severe decline from European underfunding, conservationists are warning in a hard-hitting report.

It highlights "the shockingly low level" of funding received by the main Scottish programme for environmental work on agricultural land and says birds such as the lapwing and redshank are among the species at risk.

Despite the international importance attached to Scotland's countryside, the country has been receiving proportionately less support for its rural environment than any other country in Europe - just £51.53 per hectare compared with an average of £182.66.

England has been getting half as much again, Wales twice as much and Ireland seven times what Scotland received. As a result, the Scottish Executive's target to halt the decline in threatened wildlife and ecology by 2010 will be seriously undermined, it is claimed.

The report, entitled Agri-Environment in Crisis?, has been published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It looks at the failures of the final year of the Rural Stewardship Scheme (RSS), Scotland's main agri-environment programme, in 2006.

A massive 77% of applicants were turned down for the scheme, mainly due to lack of funding. Some 1696 applicants to the scheme were unsuccessful, with only 504 getting in.

One who was refused was livestock farmer William Montgomery of Upper Carlston Farm at Torrance in Stirlingshire. He said: "I'm really happy to look after the wildlife on my farm, and have already created ponds for great crested newts.

"I really wanted to get more involved in managing my land for birds and other wildlife, and would have been able to, had I been accepted into RSS. I feel sick to have missed out on this opportunity".

According to the RSPB, if the scheme had been properly funded, the amount of land managed for wading birds like lapwing and redshank could have been doubled. Major benefits would also have been delivered for the corn bunting, a rapidly declining species confined to east Scotland and crofts in the Uists.

The RSS is due to be replaced by land management contracts under the new Scottish Rural Development Programme. Last night there were calls to fund the new scheme more generously.

Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland, said: "Government, both in Brussels and in Scotland, has to recognise that properly rewarding farmers and crofters when they are keen to carry out this type of work, is essential to protecting and enhancing Scotland's environment.

"The objectives set by the executive for Scotland's agri-environment programme are laudable but without proper funding behind them, they will mean nothing."

A spokeswoman for the executive, however, said it was wrong to focus on RSS in 2006. In the intervening years between 2000 and 2006, ministers had approved more than 5000 RSS plans worth £130m to farmers and crofters.

"That is a substantial commitment to wildlife conservation and to rural economies. The executive has also increased agri-environment support to £30m annually."