The library
Everything that comes with the articles
The checklists, templates and assessment tools built alongside the writing, 86 of them, in one place. Pick one and I will email you the link.
That file is not where the page thought it was, which is my fault rather than yours. Email me at [email protected] and I will send it straight over. Email me at thomas@thomasgaultier.com and I will send it straight over.
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Adversarial Dynamics Assessment Tool and Transformation Roadmap
The Adversarial Dynamics Assessment Tool and Transformation Roadmap. A diagnostic tool for evaluating the current state of your mining company-community relationship and identifying which tr…
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AI in Community Grievance Management: the working checklist
Artificial intelligence can make a grievance mechanism faster, more organised, and much harder to ignore, but it cannot resolve a single grievance.
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Artisanal and Industrial Mining Coexistence: the working checklist
Two mining systems often want the same ground. An industrial company holds a legal concession with exclusive mineral rights.
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Before the Mine Arrives: How a Community Prepares to Negotiate: the working checklist
Your leverage is highest before the first shovel breaks ground, and it drains away with every dollar the company commits.
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Building Trust Through Data Transparency: the working checklist
Most mining conflicts I have worked near run on an information gap before they run on anything else.
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CBA Dispute Resolution Clause Builder
CBA Dispute Resolution Clause Builder, a sectioned checklist that walks you through every drafting decision across all four tiers, neutral selection, cost allocation, and community transpare…
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CBA Essential Elements Audit
The CBA Essential Elements Audit, a 17-point checklist that scores a draft agreement across benefits, protections, governance, enforcement, and the common drafting traps that make commitment…
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CBA Financial Provisions Structuring Template
The CBA Financial Provisions Structuring Template, a fill-in instrument that walks finance teams and community negotiators through model choice, formula definitions, sizing, timing, escalati…
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CBA Implementation and Monitoring Checklist
CBA Implementation and Monitoring Checklist, a sectioned diagnostic that scores your agreement across governance, monitoring, capacity, adaptive management, and enforcement.
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CBA Implementation Health Check
CBA Implementation Health Check, a sectioned worksheet that scores your agreement against the six durability factors these five cases revealed.
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CBA Legal Adequacy Checklist
The CBA Legal Adequacy Checklist, a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction assessment covering statutory framework, contractual binding, lender requirements, and the community’s own legal capacity to…
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CBA Negotiation Checklist
A printable tool for tracking your preparation, evaluating proposals, and ensuring no critical provision is overlooked.
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CBA Red Flag and Fix Framework
The CBA Red Flag and Fix Framework, a two-column reference that pairs each common warning sign in a draft agreement with the specific enforceable term that closes it.
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Co-Mediation Readiness Checklist for Mining Disputes
The companion tool is the Co-Mediation Readiness Checklist for Mining Disputes, a checklist of roughly 18 checkpoints across six sections.
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Cobalt, the DRC, and Artisanal Reality in the Supply Chain: the working checklist
Most of the world's cobalt comes from one country, and a meaningful share of it is dug by hand.
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Community Agreement Renegotiation Roadmap
Community Agreement Renegotiation Roadmap, a phased field tool covering trigger assessment, neutral process design, evidence sharing, and durable revision terms.
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Community Conflict Cost Exposure Model
The Community Conflict Cost Exposure Model, a fill-in template that helps CFOs and risk teams estimate direct, indirect, and strategic conflict costs against the cost of prevention.
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Community Risk Due Diligence Field Kit
Community risk field kit for scoring mining due diligence red flags, mediation readiness, and valuation exposure before investment.
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Comparing Regulatory Models Consultation Framework
Community consultation framework comparing Canada, Australia, Africa, FPIC thresholds, benefit-sharing, and lender overlays.
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Consultation Regime Comparator
The practical takeaway fits in three moves. First, build your consultation to the highest enforceable standard touching the project. Second, run it through an independent process you can def…
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Corporate Apology Acknowledgment Readiness Assessment Mining
The Corporate Apology and Acknowledgment Readiness Assessment. A diagnostic tool for mining executives, community relations leaders, and mediators.
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Crisis Communications When Trust Has Collapsed: the working checklist
When a community has stopped believing anything your company says, better messaging is not the fix, and reaching for it makes the hole deeper.
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Critical Minerals Social Risk Assessment Checklist
Critical Minerals Social Risk Assessment Checklist > > A practical, field-tested tool for assessing community conflict risk across your critical minerals portfolio. Covers all six mineral ca…
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Cross-Cultural Readiness Checklist for African Mining Mediation
The companion tool is the Cross-Cultural Readiness Checklist for African Mining Mediation, a checklist of roughly 16 checkpoints across five sections.
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Cultural Heritage Dispute Resolution Checklist
Before you commit to either proceeding or abandoning a deposit, run the dispute through the companion checklist. It sets out roughly 17 checkpoints across five sections, starting with “Seque…
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De-escalation in an Acute Crisis: the working checklist
The first hour of an acute crisis at a mine decides most of what follows. The reflex that feels safest in that hour is usually the one that makes it...
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Digital Tools for Remote Stakeholder Engagement: the working checklist
The most effective digital engagement tool I have seen in a remote mining area is not a portal or an app.
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Durable Agreements on Transition Timelines: the working checklist
A community agreement signed fast to hit a financing window is not a settlement. It is a postponement, and the bill comes due later at a higher price.
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Environmental Justice Mediation Readiness Checklist
Eighteen checkpoints across six sections that test whether an environmental justice dispute is ready for mediation, and which supports to fund first.
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ESG Community Engagement Compliance Audit
ESG community engagement audit for checking CSDDD, IFC, ICMM, FPIC, grievance, and court-ready evidence gaps.
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Extractive Mediation Toolkit Selector
The Extractive Mediation Toolkit Selector, a companion tool, is a two-column reference that pairs each technique above with the moment that should trigger it.
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Five Essential Skills for Mining Community Relations Professionals: the working checklist
The community relations skills that matter most in mining are not the ones listed in typical job descriptions.
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FPIC Consultation Readiness Checklist
The companion tool turns the five failure patterns above into a diagnostic you can run while design and timeline can still change. The FPIC Consultation Readiness Checklist takes a facilitat…
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From Protest to Partnership: the working checklist
I have stood in northern Portugal, in the Barroso region, and watched opposition to a mining project up close.
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Gender-Inclusive Engagement Readiness Checklist
To see where your own engagement filters women out, work through the companion checklist. It runs to roughly 16 checkpoints across five sections, opening with “Authority Analysis (who actual…
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Genuine Participation Audit for CBA Negotiations
The Genuine Participation Audit for CBA Negotiations, a 16-point checklist for communities and facilitators to score representation, voice, capacity, and the structural mechanisms that make…
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Good Neighbor Agreement Builder and Readiness Checklist
Good Neighbor Agreement Builder and Readiness Checklist, a sectioned checklist for deciding whether a GNA fits your context and drafting one that holds.
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GROUNDS: The Mediation Methodology for Extractive Conflicts: the working checklist
A drilling program needed access across grazing land. The herders' association said no, then said worse, and two seasons of goodwill evaporated inside a...
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Indigenous Trust-Building Assessment and Action Plan
To turn the five principles and eight steps into something you can act on, work through the companion checklist. It runs to roughly 16 checkpoints across five sections: “Foundation: Rights,…
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Infrastructure Community Mediation Readiness Checklist
Infrastructure Community Mediation Readiness Checklist. A field-ready tool covering early engagement planning, governance mapping templates, information disclosure strategy worksheets, delib…
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Labor Conflicts in Mining: the working checklist
Employment is the most volatile trigger of conflict between mining companies and the communities around them.
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Land Access and Resettlement Disputes: the working checklist
Mining operations sit where corporate interests, government authority, and community land rights collide.
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Leveling the Table: Independent Advice for Communities: the working checklist
When a mining company sits down across from your community, the table is not level, and everyone knows it.
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Lithium's Local Resistance: Lessons From Contested Projects: the working checklist
The lithium the world needs for its batteries is not scarce, and it is not, for the most part, technically hard to reach.
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Managing a Community-Driven Shutdown: the working checklist
When a community shuts your operation down, the most expensive mistake is not the stoppage. It is what the stoppage tempts you to do next.
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Managing Misinformation and Social Media in Mining Disputes: the working checklist
A single WhatsApp voice note can shut your access road by morning. I once watched a rumor about contaminated water move through three villages in a day.
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Meaningful Engagement Diagnostic
Start with the one indicator that cannot be faked. Pull your engagement records from the last two years and find the decisions that changed because of community input. If you can list severa…
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Mediator Decision Checklist
To apply this framework to your operation, download the Mediator Decision Checklist that accompanies this article. It is a structured diagnostic built around the ten-indicator matrix and the…
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Mine Closure and Community Transition: the working checklist
Mine closure is an economic and social event that happens to involve environmental remediation.
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Mining Community Relations Trends: 2026 Practitioner Assessment Tool
Mining Community Relations Trends: 2026 Practitioner Assessment Tool. A field-ready assessment covering the six major trends, with diagnostic questions to evaluate your organization’s positi…
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Mining Conflict Early Warning Audit
The Mining Conflict Early Warning Audit, a 16-point self-audit that scores how well you can detect and act on conflict signals across all five system elements.
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Mining Mediation Caucusing Decision Checklist
The four tests in this article are laid out for use in The Mining Mediation Caucusing Decision Checklist, a companion tool with roughly 18 checkpoints across four sections. Section A, “Diagn…
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Mining Project Delay: Stakeholder Communication Toolkit
Mining Project Delay: Stakeholder Communication Toolkit. A ready-to-deploy toolkit with a community assembly presentation outline, government notification and community letter templates, a s…
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Mining Protest Crisis Response Checklist
a printable tool to guide your first 72 hours, assess the situation, and ensure no critical de-escalation step is missed.
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Mining Stakeholder Mapping Template
Start with the template below. Map every actor you can name, splitting each community into its real sub-groups. Then look hard for the actors you cannot see, the beneficiaries of conflict an…
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Mining vs. Oil & Gas Community Relations Sector Comparison Checklist
### Download: Sector Comparison Checklist > > To help you apply these differences in practice, I have developed a Sector Comparison Checklist for Community Relations Practitioners. This down…
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Multi-Stakeholder Convening Readiness Checklist
Work through the Multi-Stakeholder Convening Readiness Checklist, a companion tool with roughly 15 checkpoints across six sections, before you convene anyone. The opening section, “Map the F…
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One Voice: Building Community Cohesion Before Negotiation: the working checklist
Before a mining company sits across from your community, you must settle one question that decides everything else: who speaks for us.
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Online vs In-Person Mediation Format Decision Checklist
Seventeen checkpoints across five sections that settle whether a mediation belongs on a screen or in a room, before budget makes the choice for you.
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Post-Conflict Mining Engagement Readiness Assessment
Post-conflict mining checklist for assessing trauma-informed engagement, security risk, benefit rules, and mediation readiness.
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Post-Conflict Rebuilding in Mining Regions: the working checklist
When a mining company and a surrounding community fall into open conflict, attention goes to the acute dispute.
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Power-Balancing Readiness Checklist
Before you agree to run the process, work through the Power-Balancing Readiness Checklist, a companion tool with roughly 16 checkpoints across five sections. The first section, “Diagnose the…
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Reading the Company's Promises: the working checklist
Treat every promise a mining company makes as worthless until it carries a number, a date, and a consequence. That sounds harsh.
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Reality Testing Question Bank and Readiness Checklist
The Reality Testing Question Bank and Readiness Checklist, a companion tool, holds the five question sequences above in ready-to-use form, roughly 17 items across six sections. The opening s…
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REBUILD: Repairing a Fractured Relationship: the working checklist
A mediator I know arrived at a community hall with an agenda built around numbers. Compensation tiers. A monitoring schedule. A remediation timeline.
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Remote Mining Mediation Readiness Checklist
Seventeen checkpoints across five sections for designing a mediation process that survives a remote site: access, venue, decision-makers, and channels.
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Responding to a Blockade Without Escalating: the working checklist
A blockade is a message, not the problem. By the time a community physically closes your road or your gate, it is telling you that every quieter channel...
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Security and Human Rights on Site: the working checklist
A security-led response to community tension is the single most dangerous reflex on a mine site. Not the most common. The most dangerous.
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Small-Scale vs Large-Scale Mining: Different Community Dynamics: the working checklist
Most community relations frameworks treat all mining the same way. They should not.
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Social Performance Indicator Tracking Template and Governance Framework
If you are ready to move beyond activity-based metrics and implement genuine social performance measurement, the Social Performance Indicator Tracking Template and Governance Framework provi…
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Stakeholder Engagement Maturity Roadmap
Free download: The Stakeholder Engagement Maturity Roadmap walks you through diagnosing your level domain by domain and planning each transition up the ladder, with the structures each step…
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Stakeholder Engagement Plan Quality Checklist
To apply these criteria yourself, use the companion Stakeholder Engagement Plan Quality Checklist, which scores a plan against fifteen specific tests across differentiation, resources, timel…
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The Community Relations Manager's Handbook: the working checklist
The community relations manager carries one of the most demanding roles in mining. You represent the company while you also advocate for the community.
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The Energy Transition's Social License Problem: the working checklist
The transition to clean energy runs on a mining boom, and that boom is reopening the oldest fight in the extractive sector.
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The Exploration-Phase Engagement Roadmap
The Exploration-Phase Engagement Roadmap, a 24-month phased guide with mapping templates, liaison-committee terms of reference, sample Exploration Phase Agreement language, and a commitment-…
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The Future of Community Engagement Technology: the working checklist
The most effective community engagement technology I have watched a mining company deploy was a community liaison office and a set of hand-held...
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The Grievance Mechanism Effectiveness Audit
The Grievance Mechanism Effectiveness Audit gives you a structured way to pressure-test your own system against these criteria before a community does.
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The Just-Transition Backlash: the working checklist
A transition-mineral project that treats "green" as a substitute for fairness will breed exactly the conflict it expects to avoid. The pitch sounds clean.
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The Shared Intent Protocol: the working checklist
Two years into a stalled land-access negotiation, the offer per hectare had been raised three times, and each increase made the deadlock worse.
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The Trust Audit: the working checklist
I once watched a traditional leader sign every document a company put in front of him.
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This template
The Shuttle Diplomacy Decision Checklist and Session Planning Template. A field-ready tool covering the five-factor assessment framework, session logistics planning, confidentiality protocol…
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Three companion tools
Three companion tools accompany this article. They are free, designed for immediate use, and require no additional consultancy support to deploy. They are provided as a single zip file with…
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Traditional Leader Engagement Readiness Checklist
Before you approach a single leader, run your plan through the companion checklist. It sets out roughly 15 checkpoints across six sections, beginning with “Authority Verification”, then mapp…
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Transition-Era Community Relations Readiness Assessment
Download: Transition-Era Community Relations Readiness Assessment, a sectioned diagnostic to score whether you can compress a critical-minerals timeline without sacrificing genuine consent.
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Water Rights Conflicts in Mining: the working checklist
Water disputes are the hardest conflicts a mining project will face, and the reason is structural. You can survey a contested land boundary.
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What a Fair Agreement Looks Like From the Community's Side: the working checklist
A mining company will sign many agreements over the life of a project. The ones it actually keeps are the ones the community watches, and the ones written...
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