expressions, such as dance and music, that play an important role in the oral transmission of their history and traditions. 52 86. The Garifuna people have a special relationship with the Earth, natural resources, the forest, beach and sea. Apart from being vital for their subsistence, the latter are linked to their history because they figure prominently in their religious ceremonies and other rites commemorating their arrival in Central America by sea. 53 This close relationship is reflected in their belief that “[t]he Earth is the mother,” so that it is not possible to separate agricultural production from social and cultural reproduction. 54 87. The Garifuna communities maintain the traditional communal uses of the land and other patterns of work that reflect their origins, their home on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, and their culture. 55 According to expert witness Christopher Loperena “[h]istorically, community members moved in groups to the crop-growing areas and worked the land collectively; but today [following the occupation of some of their lands by third parties], the communities […] are trying [to expand] the use of the land to try and halt land usurpation.” Consequently, many communities have changed the way they administer the territory and have abandoned collective fallowing in favor of scattered fallowing. 56 88. The Garifuna economy consists, inter alia, of traditional fishing, cultivation of rice, cassava, banana, yucca and avocado, and the hunting of small forest and sea animals, such as deer, agoutis, turtles and manatees. 57 89. Expert witness James Anaya, former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, indicated that: 52 Cf. UNESCO, Masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity, supra, p. 17. Referred to in the Merits Report (merits file, folio 13, para. 36). 53 Cf. González, Nancie, Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1998. In: World Bank Inspection Panel. Investigation Report. Honduras: Land Administration Project, supra, p. 23. 54 Cf. Affidavit made by expert witness Christopher Loperena on August 22, 2014 (merits file, folio 440) and statement made by Lidia Palacios at the public hearing held before the Inter-American Court on September 2, 2014. 55 Cf. World Bank Inspection Panel. Investigation Report. Honduras: Land Administration Project, supra, p 21. 56 Cf. Affidavit made by expert witness Christopher Loperena on August 22, 2014 (merits file, folios 441 and 442). The barbecho (fallowing) is a technique in which land is left without sowing for one or more vegetative cycles and the goal is to allow the land to recover and store organic matter while retaining moisture. In this respect, Doroteo Thomas, a member of the Punta Piedra Garifuna community, stated during the public hearing that “our Garifuna community is accustomed to work the land at the beginning of the year. At that time, the community works the land using a system we call fallowing (barbecho), because we don’t use technical systems […]; we let the land rest sufficiently so it fertilizes itself and then we work the land again. People always used this technique because they said: in such a year we are going to work such land for three or four years, while the other part rests. Then, when the community was ready to plant its crops, strangers arrived; […] they invaded the lands that were ready for sowing […]. […] We did different types of work: there were exclusives areas to plant rice; another area to plant yucca, which is one of the main crops used to feed the community, and we worked the lands in groups. I repeat, we did this so as not to destroy the forests and to let the land rest. [W]hen we speak of fallowing, we leave the land on which we have worked for four years to rest for around ten or twelve years and then return to it in twelve or thirteen years.” 57 Cf. Mutatis mutandis, Case of López Álvarez, supra, para. 54.1, and World Bank Inspection Panel. Investigation Report. Honduras: Land Administration Project, supra, pp. 21 to 25. 25