The island, along with nearby parts of the mouth of the Rio Grande de Buba, have been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because their intertidal mudflats and mangroves support significant populations of pink-backed pelicans, bar-tailed godwits, red knots, curlew sandpipers and gull-billed terns.

[2] In 1792, a group of officers of the Royal Navy led an attempt to resettle Black former slaves from the Americas on the island of Bulama off the coast of Portuguese Guinea.

In 1860, the British proclaimed the island annexed to Sierra Leone, but in 1870 a commission chaired by Ulysses S. Grant awarded Bolama to Portugal.

[5] Subsequently, in 1879, the town of Bolama became the first capital of Portuguese Guinea[6] and remained so until its transfer to Bissau in 1941.

A fruit processing plant was built on Bolama shortly after independence of Guinea-Bissau, with Dutch foreign aid.