BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Note: This page was originally written for readers from the dominant culture who are professional evaluators and/or engaged in environmental restoration or remediation projects that require evaluation. It is now being accessed by a wider Western readership wth different educational and experiential backgrounds. So the page was modified on 7.27.25. If you need a copy of the first edition text for research or publication purposes, contact the author. Readers new to this material should access the article’s home page to see the menu that displays the full table of contents.
All over the world at this moment, the Land and our Ancestors are calling out to Indigenous people through Dream and Vision. This is not metaphor, but a statement of a very active reality. The Land has always given us Knowledge (IK) that helps things be in balance. Such Knowledge is particularly important during times of change such as the one already so visibly in progress. We need to remember, preserve, and revitalize our traditional IK and also prepare to receive new IK we will be given, about everything from food and medicine plants to ceremonies of healing for places and people suffering from harm. This Knowledge can help us all respond more wisely to conditions that may be dangerous simply because they’re outside the range of our current expectations. In a changing environment, the flexibility and responsiveness that Indigenous Knowledge provides are the keys to resilience of both peoples and places.
This kind of Indigenous Knowledge will not be produced as a commodity for consumption by people of Western culture. The track record on that sort of thing has been disastrous, and the current situation is too unstable to risk a repeat performance. However, some of us are willing to share basic Knowledge with allies, in appropriate ways, as long as those we share it with live out, fully and with honor, their relational accountability to us, to the Land, and to the Knowledge itself. Relational accountability is an absolutely essential part of the Knowledge process, not a “user agreement” fine print detail that can be ignored as if it’s not meaningful. The Land is mobilizing resources for the coming winter of its rest and replenishment, that will also fuel its rebirth in the spring. So this is all exceedingly important. And it means that allies from the dominant culture can therefore help the whole world right now by supporting Indigenous organizations and people.
Indigenous Elders, professionals, and organizations are actively engaged in work that is of the greatest importance to all of life at this time. As part of this larger movement taking place, it is also essential that as much land as possible is entrusted to Indigenous people in a way that gives us legal authority to protect it from extractive industries and also from legislation that sets it aside as “pristine wilderness” that humans may not engage with. Both extremes manifest Western culture’s unhealthy estrangement from the Land.
Indigenous people must lead now. We are ready to lead now. The Visions and Dreams being sent to us now tell us it is time to do so. There is no more time for waiting for Western culture to change.
THE PREMISE
Indigenous people make up 5% of the world’s population. There are not enough of us to carry the world on our shoulders, especially since we already carry very high loads of reponsibility in marginalized personal, professional, and economic situations. But we can do what the Land is asking us to do, and if you provide us the resources to do this well it can light the way for a world that can learn by watching and benefit from the larger impact.
Over the last few decades, a veritable army of professional Indigenous evaluators has risen up and mobilized to serve Indigenous communities. These professionals are the key to real change. Until now, the larger evaluation community has employed them on projects as a matter of equity or fairness. But Indigenous evaluators who wish to participate have a much greater role to play. It is one of leadership.
The environmental community invests in and carries out environmental restoration projects in places where Indigenous communities live, and these are also carried out as acts of equity and fairness in which things are done for and to Indigenous Lands and people but without giving us control over the processes. Those Lands and Peoples who wish to participate have a much greater role to play. It is one of leadership.
THE VISION
In every budget for environmental restoration, natural hazard mitigation, or any other kind of ecological intervention, 5% — an amount due our people by virtue of simple demographic statistics — is to be earmarked for, and spent on, completely Indigenous projects. These projects will be organized, planned, implemented, and evaluated entirely by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people, under the complete leadership of Indigenous people. Over a period of time, these projects and their results will begin to demonstrate the power of Indigenous Knowledge when our people work with the Land itself to help it actualize its own genuine healing and restoration. These projects will also demonstrate the ways that healing the Land heals and restores the people and nations living there.
The reason Indigenous evaluators are the key to this Vision is that evaluation is the “bottom line” in Western culture. So we have to secure that end of the process for any of the rest of it to work. Evaluation occupies the power position.
Here are a few details for implementing the vision, developed in consultation with Fiona Cram of Katoa, Ltd.
1. The evaluation community must advance the visibility of Indigenous evaluators to the larger professional community by including them in a prominent way in all textbooks and directories of professionals, and by making that prominence a matter of “these people need to lead us to salvage what can be salvaged as the Earth temporarily throttles down for scheduled maintenance” rather than “these people need to have equity.” This work is not about equity or fairness for our people, though the 5% investment figure is certainly minimally fair and just. Instead, this Vision is about survival of whatever might still be salvaged of the natural world. That remnant will be the seeds of rebirth in the coming spring. Indigenous people are the only real hope the world has at this time for doing such a thing, and Indigenous evaluators are the ones who can coordinate an effort of the type described here. We know the Indigenous people who can do the work and can organize the effort.
2. The scope of people considered as Indigenous evaluators should be broadened to include Knowledge holders, decision-makers, Elders, artists, and scholars. The larger Indigenous community of these same kinds of individuals can work together to establish and coordinate both formal and informal networks for this purpose. Already-existing formal networks can be engaged in that process. Initial formal channels exist now in evaluation associations like the American Evaluation Association and its Indigenous People in Evaluation (IPE) Topical Interest Group (TIG). Most VOPEs (Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation) around the world should be able to connect people with Indigenous evaluators as the process begins. EvalIndigenous and the EvalPartners network provide accesss to a network of Indigenous evaluators around the world, particularly in the Global South. The group has a FaceBook page and YouTube channel in which VOICES project participants talk about Indigenous evaluation. EvalYouth, in the same network, has many younger Indigenous evaluators.
3. It’s important to remember that Western evaluation is just one way of finding out whether something is good for a community, for the people, for other Nations, and for the Land. The value system to be applied in evaluations, regardless of the format, are to be determined by the Indigenous people involved, who will engage the Land as part of establishing appropriate outcomes and criteria for evaluating them. The Land — including the sea, stones, mountains, winds, waters, and all Nations of things — needs to be a primary stakeholder, an advisor, and a participant in our evaluations and in all the work that’s done in these projects. Evaluation as a process, and the values used as well as the criteria used to evaluate, must be handed over to Indigenous communities so they can strengthen their capacity to learn-by-doing and be innovative and agile in their care for and relationship with the Land.
4. As a participant from the Western culture side of things, you may be invited to participate in the whole process or in some part of it, depending on the people involved and the specific situation. If this happens, it will provide you with incredible opportunities for rich learning and growth, as well as the chance to make friends and establish collaborative relationships in a community whose goals, values, and dreams align with your own. In the Vision I was shown, some of you were there because we are complementary. No one person, and no one culture, has all wisdom or all gifts. Diversity is essential. Always. So are relationships. We are talking, here, about walking our talk and the natural patterns of Reality. So come be in relationship with us, and bring your gifts. You have value too!
Just, you know, don’t grab the reins this time.
If you want to help actualize this Vision, if you control relevant purse strings, or if you want to engage someone with us who is in one of these positions, please contact one of the evaluation groups I listed to initiate dialogue. You may also contact me and I’ll help you get hold of the right people to start the ball rolling.
We can start small. But we need this effort to go big. It’s too important not to.
Five percent. That’s all, is 5% of your budget — not for “projects to help Indigenous people” that are run by others, but for Indigenous people to organize, carry out, and evaluate our own projects with and for our own Lands and our own peoples, as leaders. If you really want to think about fairness and equity, think about that 5%.
If you have already read the page that explains why Indigenous people must lead this work, then you have finished the exercise. Please visit this last page for a small closing ceremony of gratitude and thanks.