The original habitat of coffee is the shaded understory of montane rainforests in southwesternrnand southeastern Ethiopia. The wild Coffea arabica populations in these regions display arncomplex geographical distribution pattern of genetic diversity with most regions possessingrntheir own genotypes. This confirms that the Ethiopian coffee is important source of coffeerngenetic resources for the world coffee industry, however, the forests housing much of therncoffee gene pools are being lost at an alarming rate. This necessitates in-situ conservation inrnthe forest ecosystem housing coffee genetic resources. Yayu forest, apart from its highrnabundance of wild coffee trees, is also known for its high plant species diversity. This studyrnaimed at identifying and mapping the core areas for in situ wild Coffea arabica and forestrnbiodiversity conservation, along with the buffer and transition zones required to establish arnbiosphere reserve at Yayu. The study made use of Landsat 1973, 1986 and 2001 RemoternSensing Satellite Image analysis to determine the forest change extent and pattern, and MultirnCriteria Evaluation in a GIS environment and community participation to come up with thernfinal biosphere reserve map. Dense forest, disturbed forest, farmlands and settlement, andrngrasslands have been identified as the major land use/land cover types in the study area.rnAccording to the change detection analysis, though there has been overall forest reduction byrn7.2% over the entire period, there has been an increasing trend since 1986 owing to forestrnregeneration resulting from displacement of settlers from near the forest to village centers,rnfollowing the then vilagization policy, and semi-forest coffee expansion. The forest coverrnchange pattern displayed distinct spatial pattern with complete clearance on the higherrnaltitudes and forest disturbance in the lower to mid altitudes. The complete forest clearance isrnattributed to farmland and settlement expansion as a function of population growth and thernforest disturbance attributed to coffee expansion. Forest disturbance risk, coffee abundancernand species diversity distribution pattern have been mapped as a function of the influencingrnenvironmental variables. The core zone has then been determined to represent areas of higherrnwild Coffea arabica abundance, higher plant species diversity, less prone to humanrndisturbance, and areas that have never been under private management. However, as thernparticipatory approach in this study didnâ€™t make individual based discussions, the outputrnshould never be considered as an absolute conflict free map; but rather a considerablyrnsocially resolved map that paves the way to a further detailed scrutiny, for a better conflictrnfree map of the biosphere reserve.rnKey Words: in-situ conservation, wild Coffea arabica, multi-criteria evaluation, communityrnparticipation, core zone