It is nearly more than two decades since Somaliland got its independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991. Somaliland followed path to political, social and economic recovery and further enhanced institutional re-arrangement which marks the start of its democratization process until today.

With abundance of minerals and other forms of natural resources, Somaliland has been poorly performing institution building for natural resource management despite absence of strategic priorities to harness their natural wealth for the achievement of national development goals and sustained prosperity. However, in regard to Somaliland national vision 2030, natural resources of oil, gas and coal have not been critically highlighted as means Somalilanders can achieve this vision and other national development plans. Indeed, understanding environmental impacts of natural resources discovery and exploration activities need deep and real concern through the lens of natural resource governance. According to NRGI (Natural Resource Governance Institute, 2015), the following set of challenges face the environment as carried out by some foreign companies.

In addition, balancing the country needs for development and environment surrounding the discovery and mining area becomes absolutely impossible in Somaliland due to limited collaboration of extractive companies with Ministry of Environment and Rural Development for biodiversity, water and land protection. It is known that extractive industries including Genel Energy, Rakgas and others companies are threatening the environment in many different ways such as degradation, seismic disturbances, water contamination, air pollution and biodiversity loss.

It is also very familiar that people working on the exploration and discovery sites use plastic bags which are a serious issue in the world and in Somaliland as well. Scattering plastic bottles and bags into the land is not an issue in Somaliland and this behavior encourages both local and international staff working on the exploration and discovery to carelessly throw plastic rubbish to the ground and sometimes damage trees while building tents on different locations of these sites than having one area for temporary settlements. These and many other environment problems have been carried out by these people without valuing how vegetation cover is crucial to other organisms nearby.