Barbados once had numerous coastal swamps strung along its leeward shore, from Speightstown in the north to Chancery Lane near the airport in the south. One by one, they were filled in for commercial development, their wildlife displaced, their ecological functions erased. When St. Lawrence Gap was developed for tourism, the last duck shooting swamps connected to Graeme Hall disappeared under concrete. By the early 2000s, Graeme Hall Swamp was the sole survivor, occupying 42 percent of a wetland that the Ramsar Convention had recognized as internationally important. Its designation as a Ramsar site acknowledged what the mangroves already knew: this was a critical staging post for thousands of migratory birds traveling the Caribbean flyway, and its loss would ripple far beyond the shores of a 166-square-mile island.

Two species of mangrove anchor the ecosystem: red mangrove and white mangrove, both dependent on the brackish mix of salt and fresh water that defines a healthy coastal swamp. That balance has been systematically disrupted. The government-operated South Coast Sewage Treatment Plant has been accused of dumping raw sewage directly into the wetland. The sea-water sluice at Worthing Beach, which once allowed tidal flow to replenish the swamp's salinity, was blocked. Storm water contaminated with pollutants from 1,150 acres of surrounding development pours in through government-managed drainage systems. As fresh water overwhelms the salt, the mangroves weaken. Fiddler crabs still scurry along the pathways, and sedges flourish in the waterlogged ground, but the system that supports them is tilting toward collapse.

The sanctuary once housed a collection of captive birds that included some of the rarest in the Caribbean: Saint Vincent amazon parrots brought from the neighboring island, brilliantly colored scarlet ibis, and flamingos. The Saint Vincent amazons represented a small but significant captive population of an endangered species. When the sanctuary closed to the public around 2006, these birds became prisoners of a different kind, trapped in aviaries within a facility that had lost its caretaking infrastructure. Reports of break-ins followed. Intruders raided the grounds, poaching crabs and fish from the swamp. In April 2010, an incursion killed large numbers of crabs and caused the death of a rare amazon parrot and a spoonbill chick. Efforts to relocate the parrots to safety were delayed by government bureaucracy, and the water supply to the aviaries was eventually cut off entirely, the pipe reportedly sawn apart.

In April 2010, a comprehensive scientific survey assessed the sanctuary's health and the forces degrading it. The report was unsparing. It laid out the pollution sources, documented the mangroves' decline, and produced a 10-year recovery plan. Peter Allard, a key figure in the sanctuary's advocacy, captured the stakes plainly: once the mangrove forest dies, freshwater organisms will dominate and prevent any new mangrove system from reestablishing itself. The window for recovery would close permanently. Four years later, reporting by the Barbados Free Press found that none of the report's recommendations had been implemented. The swamp and mangroves continued to deteriorate. In late 2024, the Barbados Wetlands Trust, formed by Anthony Da Silva, purchased the property, offering a potential new chapter, though the ecological damage accumulated over two decades will not be easily reversed.