Consensus, compromise and cooperation. That was how more than 100 fishers reached agreement on how they would manage their own fishery in a small reservoir in northeastern Brazil. The long hard road that led to the agreement, the final congress in which fishers "made minor history" and the lessons that others may draw from the experience are described in this article. The fishers agreed on a nonfishing period of protected areas and a seasonal ban on certain nets in the face of a government department that told them the measures were "non-building and essentially illegal".