The Directorate Forestry Transfers is responsible for the Department's Forestry Transfers Program and leads with the implementation of State forest land and business transfer projects in collaboration with the forestry regional and area offices.

The main objective for the Directorate, as part of DWAF's greater Transfers Strategy, is to assist in the restructuring of the Department's operational interests towards transforming the organisation into becoming a sector leader and regulator of forestry in South Africa.

Key areas of operation for the Directorate are:

	transfer of DWAF managed plantations to beneficiaries through appropriate vehicles / instruments that promotes BEE and socio economic development at the local level;
	transfer of state forest land for purposes of optimum land use
	transfer of non-forest state forest land for purposes of optimum land use.
	transfer of management of DWAF managed natural forests on state forest land to appropriate agencies in a way that will promote BEE and socio economic development at the local level

The Directorate is relatively small, comprising of a few skilled program and project managers, drawing on the skills from the Department's operational and policy sections as well as from a wide verity of professional service providers on a project by project basis. The Directorate's most recent achievements were the finalisation of the third and fourth Category A commercial forestry lease transactions and the transfer of the Knysna natural forests to SanParks. The unit has a limited life span, ending in 2008, by when the Department envisages that it would have achieved the bulk of its forestry transfer projects.