Mediating Extractive Conflicts

When a mining project lands on a community's doorstep, the conflicts that follow are never simple. Generic mediation training does not prepare you for this.
Power imbalances, cultural divides, historical grievances, and livelihoods at stake: company-community disputes in the extractive sector demand a fundamentally different approach to mediation. This handbook delivers it.

Built from over fifteen years of frontline practice resolving extractive and infrastructure disputes across West Africa, Southern Africa, Europe, and Latin America, Mediating Extractive Conflicts walks practitioners step by step through the realities of company-community conflict. You will learn how to read a room where one side holds all the economic power, how to work with trauma without being consumed by it, and how to design processes that communities actually trust.

Inside this 19-chapter handbook, you will find:
• Core mediation principles adapted for extractive industry power dynamics
• Communication and facilitation techniques for high-tension, cross-cultural settings
• Conflict analysis frameworks for mining, energy, and infrastructure disputes
• Process design methods that build legitimacy with both companies and communities
• Guidance on trauma-informed mediation and mediator self-care
• Strategies for managing impasses, resistance scenarios, and breakdowns in trust
• Post-agreement implementation and monitoring tools
• Digital mediation approaches for remote and hybrid contexts
• Real-world case studies and ready-to-use simulation exercises
• 53 visual frameworks, checklists, and flowcharts
• Glossary, bibliography, and practitioner resource guide

Who this book is for:
Whether you are a mediator entering the extractive sector, a community relations officer managing escalating tensions, a social performance professional navigating competing demands, or a development practitioner supporting affected communities, this book was written for you.

Mediating Extractive Conflicts is not theory. It is a field-tested operational manual for the hardest mediation work there is.

Thomas Gaultier is a mediator and international legal consultant specializing in high-stakes conflicts in the extractive and energy sectors. Over fifteen years, he has resolved thousands of grievance claims across Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and Asia.Thomas bridges corporate imperatives and community needs, drawing on field experience as Community Relations Manager for a lithium mining project in Portugal and as mediator in multi-stakeholder conflicts in Mozambique and Zambia. He developed Social Accord Architecture, a discipline for designing durable agreements between extractive projects and affected communities.He teaches mediation and negotiation at Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Escola do Porto) and co-founded the ICFML, where he serves as Vice-President.Admitted to the New York Bar, he holds an LL.M. in ADR from UT Austin and an MBA in Mining and Raw Materials from EOI in Seville. Fluent in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.