Résumé
Today, tourism based on the exploitation of the Pantanal biodiversity and typical scenery is seen as a possible economic alternative for Pantanal-Mato Grosso. However, there are significant differences among the various perceptions and the several forms of knowledge about the Pantanal that raise questions about the viability of tourism as an activity for the local development of the region. This essay suggests three perception axes: a) the scientific Pantanal, an academic and scientific vision of the Pantanal biodiversity that seeks to reveal it by describing Pantanal species, habitats, landscapes, and ecosystemic processes; b) the pantaneiro Pantanal, the vision held by the Pantanal inhabitant, which describes the environment as a function of its basic needs and socio-cultural relations using the ecosystemic processes in its strategies for survival and the social networks to exchange knowledge; and c) o the Google Pantanal, used to designate the vision promoted by the tourist industry, which proposes a special iconography, identified on the Internet that commercializes a virgin and pristine Pantanal, exempt of human presence: a genuine paradise. These three perception axes hardly match. The pantaneiro Pantanal is little disseminated in the tourist industry. Thus, as the relation between the idealized Pantanal and the pantaneiro one is weak, we wonder if tourism can promote endogenous development and, consequently, the empowerment of local communities without stimulating a dialog between the various actors and their own knowledge of the Pantanal.