Police in Guatemala have destroyed the homes and crops of hundreds of peasant families to evict them from their small land holdings. The land is to be used to grow sugar cane and oil palms to produce ethanol and biodiesel.
The families are now homeless and dependent on food handouts.
But resistance by populations and international protests against corporations, governments and banks are also often successful.
For example the German government-owned DEG-Bank has cancelled a loan agreement with the Dinant palm oil corporation in Honduras . And the giant French energy corporation EDF announced it was stopping a CO2 trading deal with Dinant.