Somalia has national biodiversity commitments but little state-level evidence to act on them. An ongoing assignment is developing Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans for Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West State, each treated as a distinct ecological unit rather than a copy of a template.

Somalia's biodiversity is under pressure from habitat degradation, deforestation, overexploitation, invasive species and a changing climate, and the country has national biodiversity commitments and international obligations to match. What is largely missing is the layer in between: state-level evidence, priorities and costed plans that let a Ministry of Environment, a district administration or a community organisation act on those commitments in their own landscape.

An ongoing assignment is developing Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans for three federal member states, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West State, and our specialists are contributing to the technical work. The governing principle is that the three states are not variants of one strategy. Each is profiled and planned as a distinct ecological unit, with its own findings, targets and actions, while a common methodology keeps the three documents comparable.

Three landscapes, three sets of pressures

Galmudug covers arid and semi-arid central rangelands with scattered acacia and commiphora bushland, seasonal watercourses and an Indian Ocean coastal margin to the east. Its biodiversity assets include dryland shrubland and grassland systems, remnant woodland patches and seasonal wetlands and water points that function as dry-season refugia. The pressures are overgrazing, rangeland degradation, charcoal-driven deforestation, soil erosion, recurrent drought, the spread of Prosopis juliflora and competition over pasture and water.

Hirshabelle is shaped by the Middle Shabelle River and its floodplain, with irrigated and flood-recession agriculture and drier hinterland areas behind. The riparian corridor, floodplain wetlands, seasonal water bodies, communal grazing land and remnant riverine woodland are its principal assets. The pressures are riverbank clearing for agriculture, cutting for charcoal and fuelwood, overgrazing, erosion and sedimentation, flooding and drought in alternation, competition over water and the spread of invasive species.

South West State occupies the inter-riverine zone between the Juba and Shabelle rivers, one of the most ecologically diverse parts of the country. Remnant Jubba Valley forest patches hold the highest terrestrial biodiversity in Somalia, alongside riverine vegetation on both rivers, productive agricultural floodplains, pastoral rangelands and wetlands. Deforestation for charcoal and agricultural expansion, overgrazing, soil degradation, conversion of natural vegetation to cropland and flood and drought impacts are the dominant threats here.

Generating evidence where little exists

Limited state-level biodiversity data is the central methodological problem, and it is being addressed by combining whatever secondary evidence exists with rapid, targeted primary assessment rather than by waiting for comprehensive survey data that does not exist.

The field method rests on georeferenced transect walks, rapid habitat-condition plots, species observations and GPS-enabled mobile data collection. Assessment sites are stratified across the main ecosystem types and land-use zones in each state, so the sample reflects the landscape rather than the road network. At each site the team records ecosystem type and condition, native plant species with presence, abundance and condition, wildlife and bird observations, the ecosystem services the site provides, threats and disturbance indicators, and restoration potential. Particular attention is being given to documenting the distribution and density of Prosopis juliflora, which threatens biodiversity and livelihoods across all three states and which is being mapped through a combination of field observation and multispectral satellite analysis.

Spatial analysis runs alongside the fieldwork. Land cover and land use are being classified from Sentinel-2 imagery processed in open-source GIS and cloud platforms, producing habitat and land-cover maps for each state and the thematic map series that accompanies each strategy. Working with freely available imagery and open-source tools is a deliberate choice: it keeps the method affordable, and it means the state institutions receiving the plans can in principle repeat the analysis themselves.

Community consultation is the third evidence stream, and it is not treated as a courtesy. Key informant interviews, focus group discussions and participatory mapping are being conducted with state ministries of environment, agriculture and planning, district authorities, community leaders and elders, pastoralist and farmer associations, women's groups, youth organisations, local non-governmental organisations and private sector actors. Dedicated sessions for women and youth are organised where culturally appropriate, and agendas address gender-differentiated resource use, livelihood dependence on biodiversity and the barriers to women's participation in resource governance. Traditional ecological knowledge is being documented alongside scientific observation, and community valuation of ecosystem services is feeding a services matrix for each state. Where a community can tell you which tree species have disappeared within living memory, that is data.

From assessment to a plan someone can use

The assignment follows six connected phases over ten weeks: inception and desk review, stakeholder engagement and field mobilisation, biodiversity status assessment, strategy and action-plan formulation, validation, and finalisation. Inception and strategy formulation are handled centrally, while consultation and field assessment run across the three states in parallel or in rapid sequence depending on access. Where physical access is constrained, remote sensing and remote consultation substitute rather than leaving a gap.

Strategy formulation follows a structured sequence. State-specific priorities are identified from the assessment evidence, then measurable targets are defined and explicitly linked to national biodiversity priorities and to the global biodiversity framework, so that a state plan is traceable to the commitments it helps deliver. Practical costed actions are formulated against each target, implementation arrangements set out roles, timelines and financing, and a monitoring framework with measurable indicators, including gender-sensitive ones, closes the loop.

The draft strategies then go back to the states. One validation workshop is planned in each state, where government officials, community representatives and civil society review the draft, verify the accuracy of the assessment findings, confirm that stated priorities reflect local realities, and propose adjustments. Those workshops double as capacity-building events, which is the main knowledge-transfer mechanism of the assignment: officials and community stakeholders are engaged through the process rather than briefed at the end of it. Each final plan is to carry an executive summary, policy context, methodology, the assessment findings with thematic maps, a threats and drivers analysis, priorities and targets, a costed action plan, a monitoring framework and a short policy brief for state decision-makers. The work remains underway, and no findings or endorsed plans are yet available.

What this demonstrates about SoMAP

Biodiversity planning in a data-scarce, access-constrained setting is a particular kind of technical problem. It requires rapid assessment methods that are defensible rather than merely fast, spatial analysis that works with free data and open tools, consultation that reaches past the people who are easiest to convene, and enough discipline in the writing to produce a costed plan that a ministry can actually carry. This assignment draws on all of it, and on the ability to hold a common methodology steady across three very different landscapes without flattening what makes each one distinct.