Years in Extractive Sector Mediation
About Thomas Gaultier
Specialist Community Mediator for Mining, Oil & Gas, and Energy Projects
15+ years resolving extractive industry disputes across Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and Asia. 2,000+ community and historic claims mediated.
Former Community and Social Performance Officer for a European junior mining company, and trusted advisor and trainer to mining companies, local communities, government agencies, and civil society organizations.
From crisis management to structured process.
Built in the field, not a classroom. 2,000 Resolved Claims. One Methodology for Extractive Industry Community Mediation.
Thomas Gaultier has spent 15 years proving that conflict can be resolved through structured process rather than crisis management.
After mediating over 2,000 community claims in Mozambique, he developed the Social Operational Diplomacy toolkit: a field-tested methodology that gives companies and communities a shared framework for engagement.
He currently serves as a Mediation expert across the multiple mining projects, acts as an International Legal and Dispute Resolution Consultant in the energy sector, lectures on negotiation and mediation at Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
He holds a New York Bar licence, an LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution from UT Austin and an MBA in Mining and Raw Materials from the Escuela de Organización Industrial in Seville, and is Co-founder and Vice-President of ICFML.
His mandates have brought him to Mozambique, Zambia, the Republic of the Congo, Turkey, Tunisia, Thailand, France, the USA and beyond, in contexts where the relationship between a mining or energy company and the surrounding communities is the variable that determines whether a project proceeds.
Extractive Industry Mediation Expertise
A practice built on field experience.
Fifteen years of mandates across ten countries, working between companies and communities where the conflict is real and the margin for error is not. The numbers reflect what that work has produced.
Countries with Project Experience
Multi-Party Disputes Mediated
Industry Professionnals Trained
He is a pioneer in his field and a privilege to work with.
Thomas is a multi-skilled, energetic and well qualified Dispute Resolution practitioner who is dedicated to building the commitment of Portuguese lawyers to non-adjudicative Dispute Resolution.
Contributions to the Field
What the field taught. What the textbook missed.
After years of helping resolve thousands of disputes across Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and Latin America, Thomas has distilled fifteen years of frontline mediation practice into a resource that practitioners and organisations can apply directly.
MEDIATING EXTRACTIVE CONFLICTS is the definitive practitioner’s handbook for company-community disputes in the extractive and energy sectors, covering the full process from conflict analysis and process design through trauma-informed mediation, power asymmetry management, resistance scenarios, and post-agreement implementation, to long-term relationship building and digital mediation approaches. It is written for professional mediators working in extractive contexts, for community relations officers managing tensions on the ground, and for organisations seeking to understand what credible, field-tested community mediation actually demands of them in practice.
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Why Extractive Industry Mediation Requires a Specialist
One party arrived by helicopter. The other walked three hours.
I’ve sat in mediation sessions where one party arrived by private helicopter and the other walked three hours from their village. That’s the reality of extractive industry conflict.
I've facilitated dialogues where sophisticated legal or technical teams negotiated across the table from community elders who'd never attended formal school. I've worked on projects where millions of dollars hung in the balance alongside questions of cultural survival.
These power imbalances are real. They shape every aspect of extractive industry conflicts.
What Drives Me:
To prove that industrial projects and the communities they affect can build something lasting together, by replacing conflict with structured dialogue that protects both livelihoods and investments.
The Potential:
I believe in giving all parties, from boardrooms to village halls, a shared process and common language for engagement. Field-tested frameworks replace improvisation with predictable, transparent steps that turn distrust into working relationships.
When mediation works in this sector, it creates outcomes neither party could achieve alone:
Communities secure meaningful benefit agreements and environmental protections
Companies gain the social license to operate essential for project success
Conflicts that might have escalated to protests or legal battles find negotiated resolutions
Relationships built during mediation provide frameworks for addressing future disputes
The Challenge:
This work is difficult. Extractive projects generate legitimate conflicts. Environmental impacts are real, economic dependencies create vulnerabilities, historical grievances run deep.
Mediation doesn't erase these tensions. But it can create processes where parties negotiate based on interests and shared values rather than positions, where technical complexity gets translated into understandable terms, where power imbalances receive explicit attention.
The Commitment:
After 15+ years in this field, I'm more convinced than ever that the extractive sector needs specialized mediation expertise. The projects will continue.
The world requires the minerals, energy, and infrastructure these industries provide more than ever. The question is whether that extraction happens through conflict or through negotiated processes that respect both community rights and project realities.
Conflict is inevitable. Bad process is not. I’ve dedicated my career to proving the difference.
Managing community conflict in a mining, oil & gas, or energy project?
A 30-minute call costs nothing. It’s enough to understand your situation, whether you’re managing active community opposition, an FPIC process, a resettlement plan, or a dispute that hasn’t escalated yet. No obligation, no generalist pitch.
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