Kutarere

Kutarere is a community in the Ōpōtiki District and Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island, on the coast of the Ōhiwa Harbour.

Following the European settlement of the Ōpōtiki township, Kutarere became a port for incoming goods until October 1959.

A photograph of Kutarere by Brian Brake, taken in the 1980s, is held in the collections in Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

In 2007, Tūhoe man James Takamore was buried at the Kutarere cemetery. It sparked a lengthy legal and protest dispute between his partner and immediate family, who wanted him buried in Christchurch, and his wider family and Kutarere elders, who wanted him to remain buried at Kutarere.

In 2011, courts found the wider family had acted illegally in taking the body without the wife's permission. Attempts to disintern the body in 2014 were blocked by protesters. The two parties reached a confidential resolution through mediation in 2015.

The case sparked a wider legal and ethical debate about New Zealand's burial laws.

One person was burnt during a house fire in Kutarere in August 2016.

The town was isolated by flooding and slips, which closed State Highway through the Waimana Gorge, south of the settlement, in April 2017 and July 2018. A tornado went through the area in August 2018.