[2] Some more prominent figures who have led the protests are activist Panai Kusui, her husband Nabu Husungan Istanda (那布) and documentary filmmaker Mayaw Biho.

[12][13] Sunflower Student Movement leader Lin Fei-fan actively joined the first day of the Indigenous Ketagalan Boulevard protest.

[14][6] In June and July 2017, thousands of people protested between the building of the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office Building to raise concerns about the twenty-year extension of the mining rights of the corporation Asia Cement (part of the Far Eastern Group conglomerate) granted on 14 March 2017 without conducting an environmental impact assessment.

The protestors being large in numbers was said to be following the death of Taiwanese documentary maker Chi Po-Lin earlier in June while filming a sequel to his 2013 film "Beyond Beauty: Taiwan From Above", as the release of Chi's final footage of the "Sincheng Mine" (referring to Asia Cement's mine in Hualien County's Xincheng Township) in which one could purportedly see the company having expanded it operations, while the latter claimed it had reduced them, went viral.

Activist Panay Kusui joined these environmental protesters, on the common grounds of accusing the government of not protecting Aboriginal land from exploitation.