Located in Oregon and founded in 2023, Silvix Resources is a nonprofit environmental law firm with more than 20 years of experience in federal forest law, policy, and collaboration with a mission of using those tools to advance the conservation, restoration, and stewardship of western public lands.
Susan Jane M. Brown is Principal of Silvix Resources. Her primary focus of litigation is federal public lands forest management, but her practice includes cases involving the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest Management Act, and other land management statutes including the Oregon and California Lands Act. Susan Jane’s policy portfolio includes federal land management planning, wildfire risk reduction and mitigation, appropriations, wildlife conservation, and Indigenous co-management of federal lands, among other issues.
She continues her involvement in collaborative working groups across the Pacific Northwest, including as a founder of the Blue Mountains Forest Partners on the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon.
Prior to founding Silvix, Susan Jane was a senior staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) for 14 years where she also directed the Wildlands Program. Susan Jane joined WELC after two years as Natural Resources Council for Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) in Washington, DC.
While with Congressman DeFazio, Susan Jane’s portfolio included public lands, environmental, natural resources, agricultural, Tribal, and related issues. She was responsible for conducting legal research on, and drafting of, proposed and introduced legislation, and worked with other Members of Congress and their staffs, as well as staff of the House Natural Resources Committee, to enact natural resources legislation.
Prior to her time inside the Beltway, Susan Jane spent three years as a staff attorney with the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, Lewis and Clark Law School’s environmental law clinic.
Her docket included dozens of cases involving the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest Management Act, and other land management statutes.
Susan Jane’s primary focus of litigation was federal public lands forest management, an expertise she utilized as a Clinical Professor of Law at Lewis and Clark Law School. Susan Jane is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Lewis and Clark Law School, where she has taught Forest Law & Policy to upper division law students for 16 years and counting.
Before joining the faculty at Lewis and Clark Law School, Susan Jane spent three years as Executive Director of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force (now the Cascade Forest Conservancy), where she created and led a comprehensive, cohesive, and mutually beneficial collaborative strategy among environmentalists, citizens, and public officials focusing on sustainable uses of public forest lands in southwest Washington State.
Susan Jane graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1997 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, English, and Philosophy, and graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School in 2000 with a Juris Doctorate and the Environmental and Natural Resources Certificate. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Bernard O’Rourke Award for Environmental Scholarship, Lewis and Clark Law School (2000); Bridge Builder Award, Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition (2012); Outstanding Conservation Leadership Award, Wilburforce Foundation (2019); and the Annual Leadership Award, Oregon State Bar Environmental and Natural Resources Section (2020). Susan Jane is active with the Forest Resources Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section on Energy, Environment And Resources (SEER), and is the Written Content Chair for SEER.
Board Members
Megan Birzell, Board President
Megan is the Washington State Director for The Wilderness Society. Throughout her career, she has advocated for science-based forest policy, restoration, and management on national forest lands. She has worked closely with diverse stakeholders, scientists, and elected officials and led highly successful conservation campaigns in Montana, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and at the national level. Megan holds an M.S. in Forestry from Northern Arizona University and a B.S. in Recreation Management from the University of Montana.
Lesley Adams, Board Treasurer
Lesley is currently a Public Services Organizer for SEIU Local 503 where she enjoys cross-pollinating labor justice with her environmental advocacy roots. She worked for the Klamath -Siskiyou Wildlands Center where she founded Rogue Riverkeeper, as well as for Waterkeeper Alliance where she coordinated waterkeeper programs around the Western United States. She holds a B.S. in Environmental Studies and Biology from Southern Oregon University. In her free time, she loves soaking in the forests and rivers of the Klamath-Siskiyou with her son and dog.
Marlee Goska, Board Member
Marlee is a staff attorney with the Climate Justice Program at the Alaska Institute for Justice, where she works with remote Alaska Native villages on climate resilience and subsistence advocacy. She has experience working on legal and policy issues related to Alaska Native subsistence, treaty rights, natural resources management, land and community resilience, and tribal co-management and co-stewardship. She has litigated cases before the U.S. Districts of Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Alaska as well as the Ninth Circuit. Marlee is a 2021 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School where she was named a Wyss Scholar for Conservation of the American West. She previously lived in rural northeastern Oregon and now resides in Anchorage, AK with her wife, Chloe, their two dogs, and a blind cat.
Gilly Lyons, Board Member
Gilly recently served as a science and policy analyst for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ efforts to protect and restore California’s coastal habitats, conserve kelp forests, and implement ecosystem-based management in state and federal waters. Before coming to Pew, she was policy director for the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Portland, Oregon, and legislative director of the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign in Washington, D.C. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Oberlin College and a master’s in environmental studies from the University of Montana. Gilly resides in Portland with her family and loves spending as much time as she can in eastern and northeastern Oregon.
Dana Skelly, Board Member
Dana is a team lead with the Innovation and Organizational Learning Unit in the United States Forest Service and is also an instructor and PhD candidate at Oregon State University. She recently completed two terms as Chair of the Joint Fire Science Governing Board. Dana has worked in wildland fire for almost 30 years, including in fuels and fire ecology programs for three federal agencies. Her professional passion has been implementing, studying, and promoting progressive and accountable fire management. Dana received her bachelor’s in History from Rutgers College, and prior to working in natural resources was an editor and graphic designer at an art magazine in New York City.