“At the June 2016 AForGeN meeting in Romania, we again discussed the topic of developing a group project that would help to facilitate interactions and collaborative research amongst those interested in genomics of alpine forests. We agreed that a “resource development” project of some kind, that enhances the individual and collective research capacity of the membership, would be most strategic. In the world of genomics, this quickly leads to producing a reference genome sequence for a species of broad interest. We identified developing a reference genome sequence for silver fir (Abies alba) as a potential high priority for the AForGeN membership.”