Many countries have set up laws in order to protect plants. Examples of these laws are restricting land development or creating preserves. Only a few endangered species are actually protected. because they are on a lists containing the protected plants. Many more species become extinct without public notice.

A great concern is the rate at which species are becoming extinct within the last 150 years. While species have evolved and become extinct on a regular and natural basis for the last several hundred million years, the number of species becoming extinct since the Industrial Revolution is not natural. If this rate of extinction continues, or accelerates as now seems to be the case, the number of species becoming extinct in the next decade could raise to millions. Most people do not relate endangerment of large mammals or bird life, and some of the greatest ecological issues, to extinction of plants. But because they are the base of the food chain, plants are the foundation to stability of whole ecosystems and wild- and bird life.