Starting in 1991 the residents of Prainha do Canto Verde, with help from the Friends of Prainha do Canto Verde Foundation, began to formalize what had been informal resistance. They documented the ecosystem, the lifestyle, the culture, and the economy. They ran their own small ecotourism operation on terms they set themselves, refusing the resort model that had already consumed other parts of the Ceará coast. In 2001 the Residents Association began the formal demand for a federal extractive reserve - a legal designation, created under Brazilian law after the assassination of rubber-tapper Chico Mendes, that protects both the resources and the traditional populations who depend on them.

On 5 June 2009, a federal decree created the Prainha do Canto Verde Marine Extractive Reserve - 29,794 hectares of coastal plain and adjacent sea, stretching northeast from the municipality of Beberibe. The reserve sits classified as IUCN category VI, which allows sustainable use of natural resources by the traditional population living there. On 28 October 2009, INCRA - Brazil's agrarian reform institute - recognized the reserve as meeting the needs of 360 small producer families, making them eligible for rural support funding. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, the same agency named for the rubber-tapper, administers it.

The fight did not end with the decree. The Independent Association of Residents of Prainha and Adjacencies, which represented interests opposed to the reserve, filed suit to have its creation annulled. On 16 December 2014 a federal judge rejected their action. A working group to define which families qualified as reserve beneficiaries began work the following day. On 14 April 2015 the beneficiary profile was approved, closing the legal question that had taken thirty-five years of organized struggle to resolve.

What the reserve protects is what the speculators wanted to replace: coral reefs and coraline algae still in good condition, dunes covered in secondary forest, estuaries that bring constant nutrients from inland, and a community that still fishes from boats, rafts, and catamarans. Canoa Quebrada, a few kilometers southeast, shows the alternative path - a once-quiet fishing village transformed into a party resort. Prainha do Canto Verde chose differently, and the choice required courage, legal skill, and a generation of refusing to be moved. The community runs its own visitor program on its own terms; tourism here benefits the people who kept the place intact.