This research paper has two-fold objectives: (i) to familiarise graduate students majoring in anthropology with the theoretical underpinnings of cultural ecology, and (ii) to analyse and explicate the ecological-cultural adaptations among the communities living in the harsh mountain ecological setting of eastern Nepal and their traditional organisations and institutions contributing to community welfare and social equity within the framework of cultural ecology. The paper has been based on the impressionistic data garnered in from the Himalayan ecological setting in eastern Nepal.