Environmentalists campaigning to protect the Great Barrier Reef are “deeply irresponsible”, Environment Minister Greg Hunt claims.

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Mr Hunt said campaigners are being dishonest about their motivations.

“[T]hey ought to be honest about what their campaign is about: to try and deliberately harm the reputation of the reef and hurt Indigenous owners, tourism operators and farmers right along the Queensland coast. They are the real victims of this campaign.”

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The World Heritage Committee will make its decision on whether or not to put the Great Barrier Reef on the endangered list on Saturday, and Mr Hunt said he was confident it would not come to that.

“I’m increasingly confident the draft decision will recognise what we’ve done. The feedback from other countries has been increasingly supportive and there is no indication they are looking to delist it,” he told the paper.

Environmental group WWF was not so upbeat. While it acknowledged there was a “slight” improvement in the health of the reef’s coral in 2013-14, it said this is not enough.

“It’s premature to say it is a trend and it pales in comparison to the loss of over 50% of coral cover in the last 30 years, and up to 70% since the 1960s,” said WWF spokesperson Nick Heath.

“Unfortunately, there is not yet evidence that government programs have led to any improvement. It’s more likely to be because there has been less flooding impacting on the Reef,” he said.

“The sad truth is that the Reef is still in big trouble and the funding provided by our governments to tackle water pollution is nowhere near what is required,” Mr Heath said.

He said the government needed to commit an extra $400 million, on top of the $100 million already committed.

While environmental groups say the government is not doing enough, they do not expect the Great Barrier Reef to be listed as endangered yet. A more likely outcome is that Australia will be put on probation, with the requirement to report back on progress in two years.