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Tem42 comments on When there are too few people to donate money to - Less Wrong Discussion
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It is worth noting that in the case of the Snowdrop, the classification of species and subspecies is messy. A lot of the preservation is trying to preserve natural variations in their natural habitat. If all we cared about was Galanthus nivalis paralectotype we could ignore localized subspecies -- in fact, if all we cared about was Galanthus nivalis the pretty white flower, we would just be happy to let it go extinct in the wild -- we have plenty in gardens across Europe.
The reason why people take them from the fields when it is so easy to grow them in your back garden is simply that if you take flowers from a mountain field they are free. If you live near a field, don't expect to get caught, and have not particular feelings on the tragedy of the commons, why wouldn't you pick them and sell them?
Were I a part of the system, yes, I would. But I am not, and there were cases (I remember two) when the protected species was declared extinct from a reserve, and the habitat irreversibly changed (into a wood logging site and into a building site, respectively). Without the species (Galanthus sp. in the one case, 3 orchids + 2 willows in the other) the ecosystem is still valuable, but much harder to defend.
So... A species becomes popular - is recognized as becoming rarer - is protected by law (since the Red Data Book has more to do wth law than with science) - is gradually exterminated or left only in unconnected populations - is proclaimed a conservation target - and then winks out, one population at a time, and the places where they used to be are seen as 'lost' and so much less valuable, conservation-wise.