The paper substantiates the need to develop an information and reference system for ecology. Since the volume of regulatory and legal information in this area is enormous, and in general, ecology and environmental protection simply cannot be taken into account, there is a need for a fairly prompt and simple search for the information necessary for the user. For this purpose, the main methods of information search are considered and systematized, and an analysis of the main systems for searching for reference and legal information available for general use is carried out. On the basis of the analysis, the advantages and disadvantages of the leading information and reference systems were revealed, which provided the basis for setting tasks for the development of a specialized information and reference system. The introduction shows the relevance of the search and storage of regulatory documents for use in work by persons engaged in ecologic and environmental protection activities. The authors proposed a technique for automatic information retrieval from Internet sources, which consists of the following procedures: searching for the necessary information, processing the information received, obtaining the necessary information, preparing information for loading into the system database, and updating the information. The stages of the system design from the formation of requirements for the system and the implementation of functional modeling to the description of the implementation of each module are shown. The structure of the information and reference system, consisting of modules for processing input information, extracting information, processing output information and a database, is described. When describing the system architecture, the system interface and examples of outputting the results of the parser's operaton are given. Finally, the results of testing the system and the expected benefits of implementation are described. The information and reference system, with certain settings, can be used in other areas of human activity, where it is necessary to search for relevant regulatory information of a certain profile.