The article analyzes the concept “traditional indigenous knowledge”, substantiates its value for sustainable development of the northern regions of the Russian Federation, as well as considers a possibility to integrate such knowledge into the rules of the Russian legislation both at the federal and at the regional levels. Methods of legal science and other social sciences are used to understand the role of traditional knowledge of the northern indigenous minorities and its relationship with the rules of the Russian Federation legislation. Regulatory legal acts in force in the field of the environmental law were analyzed with formally dogmatic method and method of contextual analysis. Hermeneutic method and method of judicial anthropology were used due to the interdisciplinarity of the problem in question. The complex interdisciplinary study makes it possible to claim that the system of legal principles and rules can be based on the indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge that may provide a unified basis of valuesof social regulations in the field of society and nature interaction. The need to improve legislation of the northern subjects of the Russian Federation is substantiated. It must include both current rules created in the process of development of the environmental law and rules for behaving in the environment created in the process of the indigenous communities development and used by them to ensure traditional way of living and traditional environmental management in the area of their original habitat.