Аннотация:The article is devoted to the analysis of the theoretic and methodological bases of the categories of “tradition” and “innovation” in the mountain environment. Differences between traditional and innovative forms of environmental management and points of contact have been defined. Traditional environmental management does not mean opposition to binary antinomy “innovation—tradition” but rather a linear diada of “tradition-innovation” as a balanced (sustainable) developing system. Optimization of environmental management does not involve the loss of traditions, but their reasonable transformation. The essence of traditional environmental management is not the exact reproduction of economic and cultural stereotypes from generation to generation, but to the preservation of harmony in the triad “nature—population—economy.” The work proposes the conjugated development of traditional (forest and agro-industrial complex, agriculture, etc.) and innovative (agro- and eco-tourism, development of IT technologies in management, etc.) areas of environmental management in the North Caucasus, provided the inexhaustible use of geoecological potential and sustainable functioning of geo-systems.