2008年，馬政府上臺，臺灣的社會運動所面對的政治機會結構產生了以下三個變化：執政者的保守路線、運動者參與政府決策管道的緊縮，及民進黨重新成為社會運動的政治聯盟者。晚近對於馬政府時期的環境運動研究主要聚焦在兩個面向：第一、以個案研究為主，討論個別環境抗爭的起因、過程及後續的影響等；第二、側重環境正義的規範性問題，如對民主人權的堅持、公民農業的推行、對開發主義與土地投機的批判等。然而，兩者皆缺乏與整體的環境抗爭輪廓的參照，以致於前者往往過度誇大特定個案的代表性，而後者則是缺乏足夠的經驗證據支持。為此，我們以聯合報與自由時報在2008到2012年間的環境抗爭報導，進行抗爭事件分析，聚焦於抗爭的動力、數量、規模及參與者的組成。我們發現，作為對馬政府所帶來的三個政治機會結構變化之回應，環境抗爭在數量上逐年增加，其中，反新增汙染及反資源轉移的主題是環境抗爭增加最主要的動力、動員規模也日趨擴大、帶有族群與職業色彩之抗爭劇碼出現，及民進黨成員對環境抗爭的參與也逐漸增加。

Ma Ying-Jeou's victory in the 2008 presidential election brought about changes in the political opportunity structure under three dimensions: a conservative shift of policy orientation, the closing of policy channels and the opposition party's pro-environmental turn. The existing literatures on the environmental protests under Ma Ying-Jeou government are either focusing on the dynamics, process, and consequence by single-case studies, or concerned with the normal aspects of environmental justice, democratic values, human rights, alternative agricultural production, as well as the problems with the developmentalism and land speculation, etc. However, what has been absent is an overall description of the environmental protests under the Ma Ying-Jeou government. This paper analyzes the development of Taiwan's environmental protest since the second power transfer in 2008. We apply the method of protest event analysis by using the journalistic reports in United Daily and Liberty Times, with special focus on the dynamics of protest, event number, mobilization scale, protest repertoire and the composition of participants. We maintain that the Kuomintang's return to power radically alerted the political opportunity structure. Our study reveals that environmental protests and their scales were on the rise under Ma Ying-Jeou government. Protests against new pollution and resource extraction became the new major themes. The emergence of ethnicity-based and occupation-based protests was also a new feature.