Some info here:
http://www.ipmg.org/id6.html
Also, below is from http://www.homedepotsucks.com/reliefPaper.cfm
Also called luan, meranti or Philippine Mahogany, lauan is the term that is
now used to denote any tropical hardwood plywood. Actual lauan trees are
native to the former rainforests of the Philippines, but have become nearly
commercially extinct. Most tropical plywood now comes from the shrinking
(and burning) rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia and is sometimes called
meranti. All tropical plywood may be composed any one or two of hundreds of
different species, all lumped into the same term, either lauan, meranti or
Philippine mahogany. These woods have no relation to mahogany at all (the
name was thought up by the US Forest Service to sell more plywood from the
Philippines). Tropical plywood is the most commonly imported tropical
hardwood, entering the U.S. as plywood sheets, veneers, door skins and
furniture. Plywood makes up 80% of U.S. tropical hardwood imports. Lauan or
meranti is poor- to medium-quality wood with a range of color from red to
near white.
Lauan is highly undervalued, as Asian logging firms have cleared through
millions of hectares of rainforest since the 1950s. Philippines, once the
largest exporter, is now over 80% deforested. Thailand, once a large
producer, is also 80% deforested. Malaysia and Indonesia, both recent top
exporters of tropical plywood, have each lost half their forests to logging
and consequent deforestation.
Indigenous peoples in each of these countries have attempted to stand in the
way of the slaughter of their forests, but to little avail. In Malaysia, the
army has beaten and arrested many indigenous Penan as they have attempted to
block the ravaging of their homelands by Japanese logging firms and the
Malaysian government.
In the Philippines, activists have been targeted for assassination by
illegal loggers seeking to cut the few remaining lauan trees on private
lands.
Undervalued and sold very cheaply, the real cost of lauan is extremely high.
Home Depot sells lauan plywood in the form of all-lauan plywood sheets of
varying thicknesses (in the L.A. store, from La Mirada DC/Taraga Pacific),
interior hollow-core doors, lauan-faced softwood plywood sheets (Roseburg
Forest Products), and paneling.
Home Depot sells solid lauan (or other related species of Southeast Asian
rainforest hardwoods in the Shorea group) as handles on wheelbarrows (True
Temper) and possibly pre-hung front doors (Main Door Corp., Gardena, CA)
(incorrectly marketed as "mahogany").