Wounaan and Embera indigenous communities occupying four territories in eastern Panama are taking their nearly five-year land-titling battle with the government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C.Their move comes despite recent gains in the Panamanian process.Some indigenous leaders say new government-imposed conditions represent yet another delay in the already-long process.With their land title applications in legal limbo, the Wounaan and Embera are facing escalating and often violent conflicts with non-indigenous loggers, miners and others entering the lands they have traditionally occupied. Indigenous communities occupying four territories in eastern Panama are taking their nearly five-year land-titling battle with the government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. Their move comes despite recent gains in the Panamanian process. Embera communities near Darién National Park and a Wounaan community on the country’s Pacific coast have been waiting since 2013 for the government’s environment ministry, MiAmbiente, to greenlight their “collective land title” applications. The ministry’s approval is needed before their applications can proceed because their respective territories overlap nationally designated protected areas. For years, MiAmbiente completely stalled the process by neither granting the required document, known as a Visto Bueno, nor rejecting the land-title application of any of the four territories. Stuck in limbo, the indigenous people living there are facing escalating and often violent conflicts with non-indigenous loggers, miners and others entering the lands they have traditionally occupied. Critics say successive Panamanian governments have used the protected areas as an excuse to avoid ceding any more national land to indigenous groups.