SIR Paul McCartney, Penelope Cruz and Robert Redford are among stars backing a campaign to protect the Arctic from oil drilling and unsustainable fishing.

Greenpeace has called for a UN resolution demanding a sanctuary around the North Pole and a ban on oil exploration and unsustainable fishing in the wider Arctic. The campaign comes as rising temperatures and melting ice open the frozen north to human activity.

Greenpeace said the Arctic belonged to the world as it was defined as the high seas. But it said Arctic states Russia, Canada, the US, Norway and Denmark, were making territorial claims on the seabed.