'[w]omen's priorities are usually oriented towards the good of the community thus placing more emphasis on the protection of the environment and the resources within it' (quoted in Jackson 1993, 1950.). This argument has been taken further by suggestions that an increased women's participation in environ-mentally oriented development projects may assist in promoting both an empowerment of women and, crucially, a solution to environ-mental problems (see Jewitt's (2000) critical review). Women are represented not as passive figures blocking progress, but as active agents of change with their own economic and social interests and strengths, which may well be quite independent of those of men. Hence, women become both visible and central in the development process.
Clearly, these arguments direct us towards exploring the inter-relationships between women's economic contributions to rural societies and their management of natural resources.
However, there are difficulties with WID approaches. The emphasis on women, as in some way economically separate from men, can cause alienation

and resentment, and in some cultures may be interpreted as a challenge to the existing (masculinist) social order. Furthermore, conceptually, such approaches can present a singular, somewhat unchanging view of women, rather than recognizing the diversity of daily experiences faced by women.
For instance, the idea that women may be better custodians of the environment is based upon a stereotype of woman as nurturer (from her role as mother), rather than through an examination of the material bases of real women's lives. In many cases, this may be true, and women may well demonstrate a sympathetic stewardship over local environmental resources (as may men in other circumstances). But to suggest that this is always the case assumes that women have access to a comprehensive environmental knowledge, and that they are able to practice such knowledges without interference and with undisputed access to land and resources (Jewitt 2000). Thus, as Jackson argues:
There is a need to unpack the idea that women's 'responsibilities' make them environmentally friendly--the responsibility to provide firewood for cooking a meal may lead a woman, when faced with a firewood shortage, to plant a tree but it may also lead her to pull up a wooden fence and burn it, to argue for the purchase of a fuel efficient stove,

to insist on the purchase of charcoal, to delegate fuelwood collection to a younger woman in the household or any number of alternative responses. (Jackson 1993, 1958.)
Because of some of these difficulties with WID, emphasis has moved to gender and development (GAD) approaches which focus explicitly on issues of gender relations, that is, the roles socially expected of both women and men in each circumstance, rather than only focusing on women. They recognize that gender roles can be very different in different places and at different times, and are inherently complex, textured and interwoven.
A problematic, however, is the tension between the strategic, but politically difficult, aims of empowerment, to strengthen women's position within society, on the one hand, and the more immediate aims of survival on the other hand, which may have little impact at all on gender relations in society (Moser 1989).