'People feel this is like the return of colonialism,' says Athumani Mkambala, chairman of Mhaga village in rural Tanzania. 'Colonialism in the form of investment.' A quarter of the village's land in Kisarawe district was acquired by a British biofuels company in 2008, with the promise of financial compensation, 700 jobs, water wells, improved schools, health clinics and roads. But the company has gone bust, leaving villagers not just jobless but landless as well. The same story is playing out across Africa, as foreign investors buy up land but leave some of the poorest people on Earth worse off when their plans fail.