Located in the heart of the Arcachon Bay, the « île aux Oiseaux » (Bird Island) faces lots of the tensions characteristic of this area. These tensions are partly linked to the ways the different actors (users and managers) appropriate the island. They turned into conflicts in the context of the allocation of the “Authorizations for Temporary Occupation” of the huts build on the Maritime Public Domain. Conflicts appeared thus locally but were not only constructed at this level since they also corresponded to two different approaches of making natural objects part of heritage, either personal or national. Such situations are to be found wherever areas are classified as natural and man-made heritage when they are still in use by local population. As such, the island example enlightens the way the different appropriation processes participate to create the different values of places.