Paper short abstract:

Oil and gas development has promoted the lives of the elite in Uganda, at the extent of poor. These extractive industries have affected both host communities and the environment. Community resilience gives communities the capacity to cope with social and environmental injustice.

Paper long abstract:

Oil and gas development has promoted the lives of the elite in Uganda. Most of them seized land in the Albertine Graben to share in the economic gains of shale oil and gas at the extent of the people at the grassroot. Those at the grassroot are the primary stakeholders in the oil and gas resource whose voices have been silenced by the unjust situations they are experiencing. They are the silent voices who have not been involved in the whole process of oil and gas development, yet the resources have existed in their ethnic region for ages. In addition to land grabbing, which has left most host community members homeless, the few scattered patches of land are infertile and not suitable for farming activities due to the decommissioning activities which were haphazardly done. The future of the host communities looks bleak because the exploration activities downstream have perturbed the ecosystem services. Despite being primary stakeholders, they are never involved in the decision-making of their ethnically natural resources (Gwayaka, 2014). Since the 2008 Petroleum Policy well stipulated how the primary stakeholders and the environment will be protected, the implementation and enforcement are poor. Consequently, using the grounded theory (Creswell, 2002) the paper sought to find ways in which host communities can build resilience using the perspective of environmental justice by claiming their autonomy as primary stakeholders and making the government accountable for its actions within the region.