Smallholder tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe have not yet fully adopted the strategies to reduce deforestation as recommended by tobacco contracting companies and government agencies such as the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe (FCZ) and Environmental Management Agency (EMA). The majority of them continue to use wood fuel for curing, leading to high rates of deforestation. This study focused on assessing the factors influencing the adoption of strategies to reduce the rate of deforestation from tobacco production, including gum plantations and coal for tobacco curing in the Makoni district's Headlands area. The target population was tobacco farmers in the study area, and the sample size was 320. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Based on the results, the factors that were significant in influencing farmers to adopt were the farmer's age, farming experience, agricultural training, education level and occupation. The study recommends that government agencies, including the FCZ, enforce the implementation of afforestation events like tree planting day across the country to help protect the environment from deforestation.

Maternal and neonatal mortality has remained a public health challenge in developing countries, particularly in Zambia despite the efforts to improve access and use of maternal health care services universally. Majority of these maternal deaths could be prevented by ensuring access to good-quality maternal health services, such as antenatal and postnatal care, and skilled attendance during child birth, including emergency obstetric care. This study explored the perspectives of midwives on factors influencing maternal morbidity and mortality rates in Zambia. A qualitative approach was utilized for this study to identify the experiences as described by the participants. This study was carried out in Lusaka urban and Mumbwa rural districts. Focus groups discussions were utilized to collect data. The challenges in the provision of care was understaffing and lack of infrastructure, fear of HIV test, attitude of the midwives, trusting herbal medicines, poverty, congestion at the hospitals and distance to health care facilities were mentioned as underlining causes of maternal morbidity and mortality. Equipping midwives with supplies and required equipment in antenatal and postnatal areas may help alleviate the challenges midwives face in the delivery of care