Knowledge is an important principle that is used in Education. Knowledge needs to be passed down for one to adjust one’s attitudes and behaviors. People will tend to behave in more environmentally sustainable ways if they know about the threats that the environment faces and how they are involved in these threats. As the people living in the coastal areas of Vietnam are usually not educated about these relevant knowledge and their relationship with the environment, they do not know how to adjust their behaviors unless they are being directed by educated authorities.

In addition, humans can have very different perceptions of risk. What the local community perceive and what the experts or higher authorities perceive tend to be different. The harm that is being done to the environment is through long term impacts, unless it is caused by a natural disaster. As these impacts that the people make are accumulated over time, instead of being seen immediately, the risks that the environment are facing can be undermined. People would then underestimate the risk of unsustainable environmental behaviors and overestimate the impacts of natural disasters on the environmental as they are more dramatic and impactful at one look.

Local people are unaware of the long term effects but the experts and higher authorities have more knowledge on the impacts of long term impacts. As mentioned earlier, many of the members in the community’s authorities are fishermen who have low education level. As a result, it is not guaranteed that the authorities are aware of the problems, or how to resolve them, hence incompetence in sustaining the environment and informing local people of their cause and effect relationship with the environment.