Actress Angelina Jolie has been tapped to direct a biopic of Kenyan politician and conservationist Richard Leakey entitled "Africa".

Jolie has always stated that she has always felts deep connection to Africa and its culture for most of her life.

Her adopted daughter Zahara is originally from Ethiopia located in the Horn of Africa.

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The said flick will revolve around Leakey's struggles against ivory poachers when he led the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) in the 1980s.

While he was KWS Chairman, Leakey gave orders to his men to shoot at any poachers and burn all the ivory the said hunters have accumulated. Ivory that were burned were worth millions of dollars.

Leakey's campaign had successfully placed a global ban on ivory trading, thus preventing elephants from being killed for their tusks. Due to his initiative, Leakey was able to get the financial support of Western governments.

Although he had managed to conserve the endangered animal and his campaign had brought in millions of funds in Kenya's wildlife parks, the country suffered a major loss of revenue because the economy had relied quite a bit on the ivory trade.

Leakey's campaign had managed to effecetively re-shaped conservation in both Kenya and the world.

Producer David Ellison believes that Leakey's story is one that should be told. He calls Leakey "inspirational" and shares that with Jolie at the helm, he believes that the movie will exceed expectations.

Eric Roth, who had won an Oscar for writing Forest Gump and written the screenplays for flick favorites such as "Munich" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", penned the script of "Africa".

The actress refers to Roth's script as "beautiful".

Jolie, on the other hand, is currently directing "By The Sea" which stars herself and her husband, Brad Pitt. The said film, which is being shot in Malta, was also written by Jolie.

The 39-year old Oscar winner made her directorial debut in the 2007 documentary entitled "A Place in Time" which was followed by the 2011 piece "In the Land of Blood and Honey".