About

Ed Camp is an interdisciplinary quantitative scientist who studies the governance of fisheries and aquaculture. Fisheries and aquaculture governance encompasses the suite of institutions, actors, processes, and objectives affecting fish that humans are care about. In practice, the Camp lab focuses mostly on understanding how decisions about fisheries and aquaculture regulations, and management actions affect fish and the people that depend on them. This work is inherently interdisciplinary, melding ecological, social and decision science, and economic methods to develop quantitative and statistical models for evaluating current governance actions, or developing new approaches. The context for this research is diverse, including recreational, commercial, and subsistence wild fisheries and aquaculture systems from around the world.

Research topics

• Business
• Biology
• Fishery
• Economics
• Geography
• Environmental resource management
• Agricultural economics
• Ecology
• Art
• Food science
• Chemistry
• Natural resource economics

Selected publications

• Fisheries sustainability: Perceptions from the ninth World Fisheries Congress

  Fisheries · 2026-05-02

  article

  ABSTRACT The World Fisheries Congress (WFC) is one of the largest global gatherings of fisheries professionals and scientists. It is held every 4 years with the purpose of sharing ideas and perspectives about new research, emerging issues, scientific breakthroughs, and governance related to fisheries science, industry, conservation, and management. The ninth WFC, held in Seattle (USA) in 2024, focused on fish and fisheries at the food–water–energy nexus and understanding fisheries sustainability from diverse perspectives. Fisheries sustainability is a goal shared globally that faces challenges across spatial scales from the implementation of good governance and accelerating anthropogenic pressures. Leveraging the unique opportunity to gain insights from WFC delegates, this study assesses perceptions of fisheries sustainability from diverse representation across career stage, geo­graphic region, and professional and cultural backgrounds. Survey results show that respondents (i.e., WFC delegates who chose to take the survey) perceived limited progress towards fisheries sustainability, often with a variable and unclear definition of what sustainability entails. Fish were primarily valued from a provisioning resource perspective, with environmental aspects of fisheries management and conservation seen as the area with the most progress and the greatest needs, rather than economic or social dimensions of fisheries.

  PublisherDOI

• Just a good thing to have: Stakeholder support for a long-running marine stock enhancement program is based on broad criteria and only weakly contingent on biological outcomes

  Fisheries Research · 2026-02-25 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  It is generally assumed that fishing stakeholders value fish stocking and stock enhancement programs primarily for their (demonstrated or assumed) contributions to increasing the abundance of catchable fish. We investigated how stakeholders in Southern California value the long-running OREHP (Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program) for White Seabass Atractoscion nobilis to which they are obligated to contribute financially through an Ocean Enhancement Validation (added to their annual fishing license). An online survey showed that Validation holders on average believed that OREHP was at least somewhat successful. When asked to rate the importance of different success criteria, respondents judged a broad range of criteria to be important. Of high importance were a variety of criteria related to research on both hatchery operations and the ecology of wild fish, fisheries and ocean management that support fisheries, and population enhancement (e.g., an increase in the White Seabass population). Criteria related to education and volunteer participation were also rated as important. Achieving population enhancement did not ‘make or break’ the program in their minds. There was strong and consistent support for broad ecology and conservation efforts associated with the OREHP. A majority of recreational respondents were willing to pay more for the Validation even if that did not result in a noticeable change in the White Seabass population or fishery. Successful population enhancement would add significantly to the perceived value of the OHREP, but a one-fish increase in the recreational bag limit resulting from it would not. Stakeholders value the OREHP for a broad range of reasons other than specific population or fishery enhancement outcomes which contribute only moderately to perceived value. Constructively considering such broad stakeholder values and success criteria is likely to benefit efforts to improve or reform fisheries enhancements, including the OREHP. • Fishing stakeholders took a multi-dimensional view of enhancement program success. • Population enhancement was viewed as only one of many important criteria and not singled out. • Fishing stakeholders viewed the OREHP as an ecological stewardship initiative rather than one that would provide a direct return to them.

  PublisherDOI

• Trade Costs, Shocks, and Segmented Export Routes: Evidence from the Chilean Salmon Industry

  2026-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Trade costs, shocks, and segmented export routes: Evidence from the Chilean salmon industry

  Aquaculture Economics & Management · 2026-01-24

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Indonesia: The Most Overlooked Country in the Global Seafood System

  Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture · 2025-08-25 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Oyster cultch–recruit patterns provide new insight into the restoration and management of a critical resource

  Marine and Coastal Fisheries · 2025-07-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Objective Our objective was to quantify the relationship between oyster cultch mass (kg/m³) and density (oysters/m²) of live eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica on intertidal reefs in Suwannee Sound, Florida. We also evaluated the potential for a cultch-mass threshold below which recruitment declines (depensation) to inform oyster fishery management and restoration strategies. Methods During the winters of 2020–2022, we collected 185 standardized 0.025-m³ grub-box samples of cultch from unrestored intertidal reefs in Suwannee Sound and conducted line-transect surveys to estimate live eastern oyster density. Cultch mass was converted to units of weight per area (kg/m³) for analysis. We modeled the relationship between cultch mass and live eastern oyster density using a Beverton–Holt recruitment framework coupled with two spat-settlement functions—one incorporating a minimum cultch threshold (Hmin) and one without. Models were fit in a Bayesian framework using Template Model Builder and No-U-Turn-Sampler, Markov chain–Monte Carlo sampling. We compared two biologically plausible parameter cases and evaluated model performance using Pareto-smoothed importance sampling leave-one-out cross validation. Results Live eastern oyster density increased in a saturating fashion with cultch mass. Models that included a minimum cultch threshold yielded median estimates of Hmin near 20 kg/m³, with 86–88% of posterior samples exceeding 5 kg/m³. However, the Pareto-smoothed importance sampling leave-one-out cross-validation model comparison did not favor threshold models over those without a threshold, and posterior distributions for Hmin were broad and included substantial probability density near zero. These findings suggest that recruitment limitation at low cultch mass is a plausible dynamic, but the exact location or existence of a cultch threshold remains uncertain. Conclusions Our findings highlight the potential for a cultch-mass threshold below which eastern oyster recruitment may be limited, consistent with ecological theory and field observations that larval settlement depends on suitable substrate. Although the precise value of this threshold remains uncertain, model results suggest that recruitment may decline when cultch mass falls below approximately 20 kg/m³. We recommend that restoration and management efforts maintain cultch mass above a precautionary range of 5–20 kg/m³ to reduce the risk of reef collapse and support recovery. Further research is needed to more precisely estimate system-specific thresholds and better understand how cultch mass interacts with other oyster reef characteristics.

  PublisherDOI

• Integrating Diverse Stakeholder Knowledge in Recreational Fisheries Decision Making

  Fish & fisheries series/Fish and fisheries series (Print) · 2025-12-14 · 5 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Scientists and policymakers increasingly recognize that recreational fisheries decision making should in some way involve the knowledge of affected stakeholders. There are myriad studies about integrating stakeholder knowledge, but they span broad disciplines and topics. Lacking is (i) simple taxonomies that organize general approaches for integrating knowledge, and (ii) a review and examples of their application to specifically recreational fisheries and specifically diverse stakeholders. This chapter first defines the terms “stakeholders” and “recreational” and recognizes that globally, the decision making for non-commercial fisheries often occurs outside of the North American concept of management agencies and even purely leisure-based fisheries. Most of the chapter reviews common approaches for integrating stakeholder knowledge, from near-complete external governance with minimal input from stakeholders (top-down, command-and-control) to self-governance by stakeholders. Organizationally, we adapt the existing cooperative management continuum to first separate non-participatory from participatory approaches and then separate participatory approaches into those aimed at creating knowledge (to eventually inform future decisions) and those focused on decision making itself. The approaches we consider include observing stakeholders (e.g., via survey), incorporating multiple types of knowing (e.g., local traditional knowledge), collaborative data collection (e.g., citizen science), collaborative modelling (e.g., mental models and quantitative modelling), participatory decision making (co-management proper and the special cases of structured decision making and adaptive management), and finally self-governance (including private management of recreational fisheries). We define each according to a broader literature beyond recreational fisheries, describe the recognized advantages and disadvantages, describe or summarize applications to recreational fisheries, and finally mention relevance for integrating specifically diverse stakeholder knowledge. We then provide advice for how to select different approaches, including situations in which certain approaches are more likely to produce intended consequences. We conclude by describing potential challenges to the more useful integration of diverse stakeholder knowledge and needs in recreational fisheries decision making.

  PublisherDOI

• A Review of Global Fisheries Performance

  Fish and Fisheries · 2025-02-20 · 4 citations

  reviewOpen access

  ABSTRACT Management of fisheries is complex as it combines environmental, economic and social objectives. The relative importance of these objectives is highly debated and the best approaches to achieving good outcomes are unclear. A lack of global and multi‐dimensional data has largely precluded reviews providing comparisons of performances across systems at a large scale. We review fisheries performance by analysing outcomes over 14 dimensions of environmental, economic and community performance using a unique global dataset for 145 fisheries collected with the Fishery Performance Indicators. The fisheries are ranked into three performance groups by an average of their environmental, economic and community scores: the 10% best fisheries, the 10% worst fisheries and the middle 80%. Furthermore, we investigate how four different types of management systems, catch shares, territorial use rights, limited entry and open access, are represented in the three performance groups. The best performing fisheries scored equally or better and the poorest performing fisheries scored equally or worse in environmental, economic and social dimensions. We found three different management systems to be represented among the best performing fisheries, indicating that no specific management system is best. Moreover, some management systems were represented in all three performance categories, indicating that fisheries characteristics or management designs are important elements of fishery performance. The worst performing fisheries were dominated by open access fisheries with no or very limited management.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Understanding Metrics for Communicating the Economic Importance of Florida’s Fisheries Part II: Quantifying Market Activity

  EDIS · 2025-02-06

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Florida’s fish and fisheries are vital to the state’s economy, but often people want or need to know just how economically important they are. However, “economic importance” means different things depending on what economic approaches are used. Understanding these differences is important for discussing the economic importance of fisheries and how they might be affected by management actions or environmental changes. This publication is the second part in a three-part series that summarizes different types of economic metrics and how they are often used in a fisheries context. The first publication in the series, , provides an overview and explains how economic measures can be subdivided into two main groups: 1) those that quantify market activity, and 2) those that measure economic value. This second publication focuses on how regional economic methods are used to quantify market activity. It provides a discussion of the most relevant terms and analyses, as well as a brief discussion of how one might proceed with a regional economic analysis that would provide these types of measures for Florida’s fisheries (and related aspects like aquaculture or coastal resources). This information should help readers, especially management agencies and extension agents, as well as the interested public, better understand the metrics associated with quantifying market activity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing an expert education program in support of non-regulatory marine fisheries management

  Ocean & Coastal Management · 2025-12-14

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kai Lorenzen

  University of Florida

  21 shared

• William E. Pine

  University of Florida

  15 shared

• Robert Ahrens

  NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service

  14 shared

• Lisa Chong

  Michigan State University

  11 shared

• Frank Asche

  University of Stavanger

  10 shared

• Taryn Garlock

  Auburn University

  9 shared

• Andrew Ropicki

  University of Florida

  9 shared

• Zachary A. Siders

  University of Florida

  8 shared

Labs

• Fisheries and Aquaculture GovernancePI