When community relationships need to be built, repaired, or held: this is where you start.
Thomas Gaultier is the practitioner that extractive companies and senior mediators call when the stakes are too high for generalists. From active community opposition to social license breakdowns and land access disputes, he steps in where the tension is real and the margin for error is zero.
Your community strategy is your most expensive blind spot
Extractive projects operate in an increasingly complex stakeholder landscape. IFC and World Bank research shows that community conflict can reduce a project’s net present value by 50–70%. Indigenous rights, environmental concerns, economic development pressures, and regulatory requirements create conflicts that traditional negotiation approaches struggle to resolve
Delays from unresolved stakeholder conflicts cost millions monthly
Regulatory approvals increasingly depend on demonstrable community engagement
Social license to operate requires genuine, not performative, consultation
Multi-party disputes involve competing interests with legitimate concerns
Power imbalances make meaningful participation difficult
Technical complexity of projects creates information asymmetry
Past broken promises generate justified skepticism
Need processes that respect rights while enabling dialogue
Standard consultation approaches fail because they treat stakeholder engagement as a compliance exercise. The cost of not having a real process is always higher than the cost of building one. Effective mediation requires understanding both the technical realities of extraction and the legitimate concerns of affected communities.
Mediation is not optional. It’s infrastructure.
Whether you're managing community consultation, resolving multi-party conflicts, or building stakeholder engagement capacity, I provide specialized services tailored to the unique challenges of resource projects.
Explore Our ServicesFacilitated mediation for conflicts involving industry, communities, government, and civil society. From exploration disputes to closure negotiations, I help parties find workable agreements.
Strategic design of stakeholder engagement processes that meet regulatory requirements while building genuine trust and managing conflict constructively.
Advisory services for organizations navigating complex stakeholder landscapes. From conflict early warning systems to stakeholder mapping, I help you anticipate and address challenges proactively.
Conflict to Collaboration: Selected Case Studies
From conflict to process. From process to trust. Confidentiality is fundamental to mediation
View Cabo Delgado Case
We look forward to working with him further.
Thomas played a crucial role in ensuring agreement was reached during discussions between MRM and community leaders and representatives from around MRM. Since these discreet engagements, Thomas has been retained by Gemfields on an ongoing basis to provide mediation advice, support and training. Thomas has proven to be a skilled mediator and trainer.
From The Field
The field teaches what the textbook can’t. Articles on social licence, grievance mechanisms, FPIC, and community conflict in mining, written for practitioners and decision-makers, not general audiences
Six Shifts Reshaping How Extractive Companies Engage, Build Trust, and Maintain Social License in 2026.
A four-pillar framework for measuring what actually predicts operational stability: community trust, commitment delivery, adaptive capacity, and local development outcomes.
A Field-Tested Protocol for Mediators and Community Relations Professionals Navigating High-Tension Extractive Disputes
Thomas demonstrates an incredible capacity of active listening.
He always finds new topics to learn and share; he has a continuous curiosity about the world and a true commitment and care for people that work with him. It has been a pleasure for me to work with Thomas in preparing and teaching two major seminars for Portuguese Law Universities, the success of which has been a lot due to his dedication, effort and commitment.
A 30-minute call is enough to understand your situation, whether conflict is already live or you'd rather it never gets there. No obligation, no generalist pitch.
Discuss Your Situation