QUITO – Representatives of some 80 museums in the Andean region met on Wednesday to analyze the sector’s sustainability and renewal policies.

The Andean Summit of Museums of the Americas brings together officials and exhibitors from Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, as well as from the United States, Canada and France.

The meeting, which will last until Friday, is being organized by the International Council of Museums, the UNESCO regional office, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture and Quito’s Museum Foundation.

Culture Minister Raul Perez Torres, who inaugurated the meeting, said that Latin America’s relationship with museums is a longstanding one and that Brazil recently celebrated the 200th anniversary of its museums, also mentioning Paraguay’s National Museum of Anthropology, which is 180 years old.

In Ecuador, the first attempt to establish a national museum occurred in 1839, tapping into the willingness of citizens to “preserve the past.”

He said that sustainability can be understood as the guarantee for a “long-term exercise” on the basis of “preserving the past for the knowledge of future generations.”

Perez Torres recalled that Ecuador declared 2018 to be “the year of the museums” and the current meeting is taking place within that context.