Rwanda will import animals including lions and rhinos and invite five-star hotel developers to upgrade Akagera National Park in a project funded by investors including the head of Wal-Mart.

The $12.3 million project is being managed by Akagera Management Co., a unit of African Parks, the South Africa-based non-profit development company. Wal-Mart Chairman Samuel Robson Walton pledged $2.5 million to the project, Bryan Havemann, project manager for Akagera, said in an interview.

This year, the industry may generate $216 million, the government said in March. In 2008, 17,000 people visited Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park to see the country’s mountain gorillas, according to the World Bank.

“We can keep people who come for the gorillas in the country,” Havemann said in a phone interview yesterday from Kigali, the capital. “The economic effect is going to be huge.”

The Rwandan government last month said it would spend $2.3 million helping build an electric fence as long as 75 miles (120 kilometers) around parts of the 386 square-mile reserve. The barrier will curb poaching and quell some of the human-animal conflict that has plagued the park in recent years, Havemann said.

“One of our biggest problems is that people set snares by the hundreds,” he said. Another issue is keeping the animals in the reserve. Last month, 55 elephants — about half the total population — wandered onto nearby farmland before being driven back by park authorities, Havemann said.

The Athens Group, a U.S. luxury-hotel developer, expressed interest in two of the three hotel concessions available at Akagera, Havemann said. The group may build resorts that rent rooms for $1,500 to $2,000 per night, he said. The company declined to comment when contacted by e-mail.

The electric fence is expected to be completed in about a year, after which developers plan to re-introduce black rhinos and lions into the park. The animals were exterminated by poachers and cattle farmers who overran the park in the early 1990s amid conflict and lawlessness. They will join elephants, buffalo and leopards, making the park home to the “big five” animals, a draw for international tourists, Havemann said.

The Walton FamilyFoundation didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

“You can take the door off if you like, you’ll get better photographs.” Before I’ve even nodded my consent, pilot Jean de Dieu already has the door of the bright blue chopper in his hands. “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain,” I venture feebly as I assess the seat-belt situation.

I’m on the tarmac at Kigali airport in Rwanda, about to get a lift to the Volcanoes National Park, home to the endangered mountain gorillas, in a Robinson R44 helicopter. “We get a lot of tourists who want us to drop them off there,” says de Dieu, as though he is running a taxi service.

That Rwanda attracts the kind of tourist who prefers to charter a helicopter than make the long journey by road is testimony to the remarkable transformation the country has undergone since the 1994 genocide destroyed its infrastructure and its reputation. This is just the kind of tourist President Paul Kagame was hoping to attract when he began promoting travel to the region in 2003. By focusing on high-value, low environmental-impact tourism, Rwanda has attracted considerable foreign investment over the past few years, with a host of new openings aimed at the discerning tourist.

The trend began in 2007, when Kenyan hotel group Serena, part of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, took over the management of two properties and turned one into a five-star hotel in the capital Kigali and the other into a four-star property on the lakeside resort of Gisenyi. Then, in 2008, Governors’ Camp opened Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, right at the foot of the Virunga volcano chain and very close to the entrance of the Volcanoes National Park, prompting Virunga, the area’s original lodge, to undertake an extensive refurbishment. Last year a new lakeside lodge opened in Kibuye and a five-star property began to draw tourists to Nyungwe Forest, one of the largest remaining cloud forests in Africa. Visitors already seem to be taking note : revenue from international tourism rose 14 per cent last year.

Rounding a corner, a collection of stilted bamboo cottages come into view, jutting out of the steep banks of the lakeshore. “That’s Cormoron lodge,” the driver tells me. “It opened last October, and is owned by a Belgian woman who used to be a racing driver.” I get them to pull up at the little jetty and climb up along mint-lined paths to the reception. Rwanda was a Belgian colony from the 1920s until independence in 1962, and owner Nathalie Cox has spent most of her life here. Deciding to stay the night, I get my own wooden cabin, which is spacious and comfortable and has a balcony from which I can see the red glow of Democratic Republic of Congo’s live Nyiragongo volcano. In the morning, the lake looks so inviting I can’t resist taking a dive off the jetty and then borrow a kayak to spend a couple of hours paddling around the islets off the coast, and shouting the occasional amakuru, or good morning, to fishermen in their wooden dugout canoes.

Finally it’s time to hit the road and my driver turns up in a classic Toyota Land Cruiser to take me to Nyungwe Forest—an area of nearly 1,000 sq km teeming with wildlife, including colobus monkeys and chimpanzees. There may be potholes and endless twisting bends along the dirt road, but it is a stunning drive with the road snaking around the cliffs and the lake providing a dramatic backdrop. With the window down, the smell of eucalyptus wafts in, and the cries of local children who rush to the roadside to call “Muzungo, muzungo” (the regional term for tourist, from the Swahili word to wander aimlessly) and occasionally ask for pens or francs, but more often just wave and smile.

Acres of tea plantations herald our arrival at Nyungwe Forest Lodge, which was built with a substantial investment from Dubai World Africa (a subsidiary of the Dubai’s state investment company). “That’s the helipad,” says my driver signaling a clearing up ahead. It seems that every lodge worth its salt has one. And then the building appears, an imposing structure of dark wood and stone walls. Staff are awaiting our arrival with cold towels and juice and we are escorted into a spacious lounge with stylish modern furniture, arty coffee-table books and a blazing log fire—the sort of place you might find in South Africa. I am then taken to my private chalet, one of many scattered widely among the tea plantations, with a private deck overlooking the forest beyond. The rooms are huge with kingly bathrooms and I can well believe that each one cost the rumored $1m to build and furnish.

The lodge isn’t the only new opening in the forest : there is also a canopy walk, the first of its kind in the region, and I am keen to get there before it closes for the day.

It’s a leisurely 20-minute stroll into the forest from the Uwinka Visitor Centre to the start of the walk. My guide points out epiphytic orchids, high on the trunk of a mahogany tree, and the blood-red leaves of the “welcome” tree. “When they fall, they create a red carpet,” he explains.

The canopy walk itself doesn’t look too daunting from the ground. It is 90m long at its main section and 50m off the ground. I begin with cocky confidence, but as I get halfway across the main section, the vertigo kicks in. Below me, clouds are wisping up through the trees like smoke and from this height the canopy below resembles hundreds of heads of broccoli. I hold on tightly to the metal wire at chest height and try to look out at the horizon, rather than down. After all, if I can fly in a helicopter with no doors, this should be easy.

This article originally appeared in Financial Times