A legal approach to induce the traditional knowledge of forest resources

Indigenous people have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. The concept of sustainable development requires taking consideration into the legal system of traditional knowledge for the benefit of indigenous people who live in or near the forest. In modern administrative countries, the statutory legal system established by the government had almost prevailed over the common law system especially relating to management of natural resources. The statute regulating forest resources should prescribe the inherent interests to traditional knowledge of indigenous people in the forest. To endow indigenous people with inherent interests about forest resources and rights to traditional knowledge, the statute legal system and the common law system have to cooperate with each other according to the governance theory of cross-regulation.