Shooting organisations oppose the proposals, saying it would penalise responsible estates and risk conservation work.
“What we should do is strengthen law enforcement to prosecute individuals who commit these crimes. They have no place in the modern shooting community,” Dr Marnie Lovejoy, of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, told the BBC.
She said licensing would add another layer of regulation to activities already covered by law and would affect everyone involved in shooting.
She added that the sector makes a significant contribution to nature recovery, spending around £500m a year on conservation work – the equivalent, BASC estimates, of 26,000 full-time jobs and 14m workdays.
The government has not backed the RSPB’s proposals, but says it will work with the shooting sector and others to explore wider measures, including licensing.
A Defra spokesperson told the BBC: “Many estates already meet high environmental standards, and we want all estates to achieve these same high standards.”
Professor Davy McCracken, from Scotland’s Rural College, has spent 35 years studying upland management and wildlife. He says the tension between protecting birds of prey and managing land for grouse shooting is ultimately economic: “That is where the root of the conflict actually lands.”
But he agrees persecution is carried out by a minority of those with game-shooting interests, and says focusing only on them can obscure conservation work elsewhere in the sector.