Qualla: Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve

Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve: Introduction

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Douglas from Born in São Paulo; currently living in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, CC BY 2.0. This reserve exists because the fishers asked for it. Commercial trawlers had been scraping the shallows off southern Bahia for years by the late 1990s, and the people of Corumbau, Caraiva, Cumuruxatiba and Barra do Cahy - around 450 families whose lives depended on the fish in those waters - saw their catches collapsing in real time. They organized. They petitioned the federal government. On 21 September 2000, a decree created the Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve: an 89,596-hectare belt of sea, eight nautical miles wide and 65 kilometers long, where industrial fishing was banned and the traditional economy came first. It is a conservation model inverted - protection generated from within.

Image: Douglas from Born in São Paulo; currently living in Belo Horizonte, Brazil | CC BY 2.0

Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve: A Strip of Ocean and Mangrove

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julian Choquette, CC BY 3.0. The reserve runs from Praia das Ostras in the south to Praia do Espelho - the Mirror Beach - in the north, tracing the coasts of the municipalities of Prado and Porto Seguro. Offshore, the reserve sits within the Abrolhos reef system, which supports the highest marine biodiversit...

Image: Julian Choquette | CC BY 3.0

Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve: The Whales Come Through

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathan Wilkins, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between July and October, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) arrive off this coast to breed and calve. They have come up from Antarctica, fasting for months, to give birth in warm water. Loggerhead sea turtles feed here year round and haul out on the region's beaches to nes...

Image: Jonathan Wilkins | CC BY-SA 3.0

Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve: The Pataxo and the Fishing Villages

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cristina C. Lima, CC BY-SA 3.0. The reserve is used by communities including Curuipe, Caraiva, Barra Velha Indigenous Village, Corumbau, Veleiro, Barra do Cahy, Imbassuaba, Cumuruxatiba, and Japara. The Pataxo people, whose presence on this coast predates European contact by centuries, are a core part of the re...

Image: Cristina C. Lima | CC BY-SA 3.0

Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve: Success, Tourism, and Its Consequences

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The fish came back. By most accounts, the reserve has worked. But its reputation also attracted something else: tourism. Praia do Espelho, at the northern boundary, is now listed among Brazil's most beautiful beaches and draws visitors in high season. Real estate prices have rise...

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0