As a child, Jonah Ryan dreamed of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a ranger.

He grew up in Maningrida, a small Indigenous community on the Northern Territory's remote Arnhem Land coastline.

An aerial view of the coast near Maningrida. ( ABC Rural: Jane Bardon )

Through his school he took up a Learning on Country internship, where he worked with the Djelk rangers, which he said drove him to finish high school.

"My old man always told me about bush tucker and I thought to myself, 'Since I know everything about the bush, I should be a ranger'," he said.

Now 18 years old, Mr Ryan is a fully qualified ranger.

"I'm a land ranger, we have two types of rangers; sea and land.

"I'm on the land to protect my home, my rock country, that is where my country is," he said.

"I just love going on country and protecting and making sure there are no weeds in our area.

"My favourite thing is collecting crocodile eggs and doing crocodile things, like going out of the chopper and getting the crocodile eggs from the nest.

"When I see Matt Wright on television, I think, 'Oh, I want to be just like him on Outback Wrangler'."

Jonah Ryan has achieved his goal of becoming a ranger on his country in Arnhem Land. ( Supplied: Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation )

Completing his schooling and ranger training has been a massive personal achievement.

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"For other people it is really easy but for me, I am one of them people who is not good at reading and writing but I still went on and pushed myself for this job and right now I am really grateful I am here," Mr Ryan said.

"I just want to thank my support team, my favourite teacher Mitch Kerry — I can't stop thinking about what he did for me and he never gave up on me and he pushed me to get this job so I could be just like my father who was a ranger.

"All my family is really proud of me, especially my grandfather and dad — [they] like seeing me protecting the area.

"Especially my dad, [he] is really proud of me going out on country and protecting our land and making sure hunters aren't going near sacred sites or killing buffalo in our area."

Mr Ryan said he benefited from having strong role models in his life and he hoped to do the same for the next generation.

"I would like to step up and be a leader for the young ones still at school and … encourage them, so hopefully when I get older I [will] see more young people becoming rangers and looking after their country," he said.

Like in agriculture, succession planning for Indigenous ranger groups is critical to ensure the next generation is capable of taking over. ( Flickr: Parks Australia )

Ranger succession planning

Ray Hall was one of the people involved in the development of the Djelk rangers at Maningrida in the 1990s.

He worked closely with Mr Ryan's father and said it was terrific to see Jonah stepping up as a future leader of the ranger group.

"It's just great to see. He values the landscape, values the culture, and values where he lives, and also values having a job, so that is a great thing," he said.

Mr Hall said it was for these reasons it was critical that ranger groups invested in young rangers like Mr Ryan to ensure there were future leaders to hand over the reins to.

"The ranger jobs are one of the few real jobs in communities, so it is actually something to look forward to as a career," he said.

"It is also an exciting and interesting job and has strong cultural ties — working on country, protecting sacred sites and so on."