The port authority seeks to enter into an open dialogue about the environmental problems with all inhabitants of the surrounding residential areas. Within the framework of the Strategic Plan for the ports, the port authority also undertakes to draw up an ‘environmental development plan for the port’, with particular attention to an efficient and ecologically sensible space utilisation. This does not only imply that all legislation on this matter (international agreements, European directives, federal, Flemish, provincial and municipal laws and decrees) must be observed, but also that the port wants to develop the green infrastructure on its own account.   Plantings in the buffer zones between the port area and the residential centres are part of this. Another example is the artificially constructed tern island in the eastern outer port, where an alternative nesting place was created for these migratory birds, after they had first nested on the newly constructed port sites. The nature reserve ‘De Baai van Heist’ has also come into being with the construction of the port and serves as an example of the way in which port and nature can go hand in hand.